My summary of 2011 in terms of running is pretty short:
- Tried to come back from injury sensibly which really meant low mileage and not much effort
- Cateran Trail race
- DNF in late entry for WHW race
- Injured all summer after WHW race including while in Chamonix to run parts of UTMB
- A few park runs where I got faster for a few and then slower again
- Entered WHW race for 2012
- Yamaa Trust winter ultra
- Completed marcothon, although some days had to be the bare minimum 25 mins as knees were trashed after my fall on the winter ultra
- Disgustingly I’m finishing the year heavier than when it started
What I have only recently been able to admit is that when other areas of my life are stressful or super busy I don’t run well. Whereas for other people running is their release and break from other things if I am emotionally, mentally and/or physically tired it affects my running too. I obviously can’t focus too well on more than one or two things at a time! However when I was thinking about how little I had done in terms of running this year I then turned to thinking about how much I have done/started in my career and that this, by no design really, has obviously been my focus this year and I wouldn’t have changed any of that. There is a bit more achievement in this list for this year:
- Applied for, interviewed and got new job as principal teacher
- Applied for, interviewed and got accepted onto Scottish Qualification for Headship masters course
- Got through another HMIE inspection
- Completed Unit 1 SQH
- Applied for and organised Malawi HT and DHT coming over to Scotland
- Went back to Malawi again
- Took on Acting Depute Head post in my school
I’ll take that!!! Looking forward to 2012 being a great challenge in my job as I carry on the acting depute post and keep studying for the SQH (which is really hard work – and loads of it) but just hoping that I can manage my time more to fit in the running too and at least for a while there will be no more things to apply for! I think Neal would say the word I have used most in the last year is ‘tired’ and hoping I can change that! He is away until the middle of March so lots of time for me to focus on studying while he is not here as well as running. Hopefully he’ll see a difference when he gets back!
