A Year Without a PB

It sounds almost defeatist, but in fairness PBs were never my goal this year.  It would have been nice to get one for sure and I did try on a couple of occasions, but this year - a very mixed year - I set out to win some races and have resulted with lots of achievements, which I'd like to analyse it numerically.

5 1/2 race wins.  3 1/2 if you take out parkruns, which most people rightly would.  The Worcester Marathon, the Bulmer's Bash and the Pangbourne 10K have in common that they were all taken by me.  And so would the Iron Runner 10K, had the absence of a marshall at a critical junction less than 1km from the end not meant that I ended up in the next village.  So I give myself a 1/2 win for that....they gave me a consolation bottle of wine after all!

1 course record.  At the Bulmer's Bash on a tricky course around the apple orchards, slicing a couple of minutes of their previous best. And they gave out bottles of Bulmers at the end, fantastic marketing if you ask me as I now love the stuff.

19 seconds. My winning margin in the Worcester Marathon back in April.  It doesn't matter that I let a six minute lead from mile 19 all but evaporate. I crossed the line first in what I look back at being the highlight of my year.  Regardless of whether local media bothered to get my name correct or not.

3 county medals.  That's two gold and one bronze.  A least it's meant to be bronze anyhow, it's a bit of a meh-colour.  So I was county champion in the half marathon, multi-terrain championships and somehow claimed the bronze in the 10K champs despite a poor poor run.  They look colourful in my cabinet though.

A decent prize haul from the Worcestershire
Half Marathon Championships in June.

2 second places. Which luckily is less than my number of first places, otherwise that wouldn't look good.

0 pbs. Actually I have to look back to September 2014 for my last one, a mouth watering sprint for the line to clock 32:59 for a 10,000m in Stretford.  That's a long spell without, but in all honesty I'm not too motivated for records at the moment, so just call me Mo Farah and we're done.

3150. The number of miles run this year.  Or in all honesty 3149.9, but my second highest ever after 2013, despite being injured that year as well.  Miles doesn't equal fitness though and I'd say I was fitter in both 2013 and 2014, based on absolute times.

So in conclusion it's been a mixed year where I've often struggled for fitness, form and many times enjoyment.  But I'm looking forward to 2016 and attempting to gain selection to represent Worcestershire for cross country at the Country Championships this coming weekend.