Hello all. And here goes then eh?
As with the other bloggers I thought I’d start with a backstory as you might well think – what’s she doing on North East Runner – but we’ve all got a story, so in a few brief words here’s mine – which is islightly different to ones you might have read before …
I was an incredibly sporty kid and unlike a lot of girls, I used to get excited to strip down to shorts and T-Shirts in mid-winter and just loved anything competitive and the chance to run about and ‘do stuff’ and give the lads a good run for their money.
I wasn’t bad either and played in pretty much every team sport going for my school. I tended to find myself in the positions where you ran about a lot – played Centre in netball and Midfield in hockey and while everyone else was flagging I’d still be going at the end …
As with the other bloggers I thought I’d start with a backstory as you might well think – what’s she doing on North East Runner – but we’ve all got a story, so in a few brief words here’s mine – which is islightly different to ones you might have read before …
I was an incredibly sporty kid and unlike a lot of girls, I used to get excited to strip down to shorts and T-Shirts in mid-winter and just loved anything competitive and the chance to run about and ‘do stuff’ and give the lads a good run for their money.
I wasn’t bad either and played in pretty much every team sport going for my school. I tended to find myself in the positions where you ran about a lot – played Centre in netball and Midfield in hockey and while everyone else was flagging I’d still be going at the end …
For some unknown reason I ended up going along to a running club and ran for Cramlington Athletics Club from the ages of 10-13ish (the Hughy and John-George era) doing the Minor leagues over at Jarrow and Cross-Country . Training consisted of lots and lots of drills, fartlek (i.e. Hugy standing in the middle of a track with a whistle), hills (i.e. running around and around and around a hill which no one else ever used unless it was snowing whilst Hughy kept count ) and ‘long runs’ (i.e. Hughy coming round the cycle tracks of Cramlington with us on his Moped) of about 4 miles – which I actually hated in truth looking back now. My Dad also started to do a coaching roll and Athletics became a big part of family life. I was alright, but never that good and my favorite distance was 800m which I trained for years at, only ever peaking at 2:36, but I was part of a great team so though my individual first places weren’t all that many – my little team got a fair few honours.
Boys, boobs and booze came along and I packed up my spikes for good and just carried on with the school sport for a bit to get my GCSE in PE and started going to the gym (wow – training indoors is so much more attractive than being cold) as we got it at cut-price when I was in Sixth Form.
The gym has been a regular fixture in my life since then and indeed me and the now husband set up our first ever joint bank account together at the age of 18 so that we could join a gym and get a cheap membership as ‘joint members’ when we were students!
Boys, boobs and booze came along and I packed up my spikes for good and just carried on with the school sport for a bit to get my GCSE in PE and started going to the gym (wow – training indoors is so much more attractive than being cold) as we got it at cut-price when I was in Sixth Form.
The gym has been a regular fixture in my life since then and indeed me and the now husband set up our first ever joint bank account together at the age of 18 so that we could join a gym and get a cheap membership as ‘joint members’ when we were students!
10 years plus of playing about with weights, spinning bikes and occasionally getting on a treadmill for all of 15 minutes at a time I was pretty fit – but there’s a gulf of difference between being ‘fit’ and being ‘running fit’. In fact I read something yesterday which said “you don’t run to get fit, you have to be fit to be able to run”, which there’s definitely some truth in – run when you’re unfit and it’s a whole different experience!
Anyway … so I decided (as many of us do!) that I was a bit bored of the gym and I picked up a copy of the husbands ‘Men’s Fitness’ and it had a training plan in for a 10k. Having never ran more than about 2 mile outside in over 10 years I thought – well, it’ll be hard – I’ll give it a bash. So I found a race which was at the end of the plan, followed this 8 week plan which was basically running (all outside – much to my shock!) and a bit of cycling and trained for the Heaton Harriers Memorial 10k in 2007. I was 211th, 33rd lady, finished in 46:56, was absolutely knackered, had a slap up Sunday lunch to celebrate with the folks and the husband afterwards (complete with HUGE portion of apple pie – which of course I’d just earned?!) and promptly packed in running outdoors once more for the allure of the gym warmth.
Roll forward to 2009 and I decided I’d do the Great North Run. Long story short – I put the training off and off and off cos I just hated running outdoors and 5 weeks to go until race day I was yet to do any training. I got back from holiday (there’s a story in that) and ended up going along to some of the ‘Race Ready Training’ sessions which Powerade put on as having something structured was the only way I was getting any running done. I got through them without too much of a hitch, though I did blame ‘heavy trainers’ on the pains in my calves?! (I was honestly convinced that’s what it was!) ran 12 miles the weekend before GNR, cried I was that proud of what I had just done and finished GNR 2009 as 100th lady in 1:37. I joined Heaton Harriers the next week and 5 weeks later finished The Great Cumbrian run in 1:32. Clearly I had some sort of talent for this stuff so I stuck with it … In 2010 I finished 2nd lady (just ahead of Liz McColgan) and last year I qualified for the Elite at GNR having broken 80mins at Wilmslow Half and did canny in the London Marathon…
There’s more on my backstory and London in my personal blog, read it by clicking here
There is more on more GNR experience by clicking here
Anyway … so I decided (as many of us do!) that I was a bit bored of the gym and I picked up a copy of the husbands ‘Men’s Fitness’ and it had a training plan in for a 10k. Having never ran more than about 2 mile outside in over 10 years I thought – well, it’ll be hard – I’ll give it a bash. So I found a race which was at the end of the plan, followed this 8 week plan which was basically running (all outside – much to my shock!) and a bit of cycling and trained for the Heaton Harriers Memorial 10k in 2007. I was 211th, 33rd lady, finished in 46:56, was absolutely knackered, had a slap up Sunday lunch to celebrate with the folks and the husband afterwards (complete with HUGE portion of apple pie – which of course I’d just earned?!) and promptly packed in running outdoors once more for the allure of the gym warmth.
Roll forward to 2009 and I decided I’d do the Great North Run. Long story short – I put the training off and off and off cos I just hated running outdoors and 5 weeks to go until race day I was yet to do any training. I got back from holiday (there’s a story in that) and ended up going along to some of the ‘Race Ready Training’ sessions which Powerade put on as having something structured was the only way I was getting any running done. I got through them without too much of a hitch, though I did blame ‘heavy trainers’ on the pains in my calves?! (I was honestly convinced that’s what it was!) ran 12 miles the weekend before GNR, cried I was that proud of what I had just done and finished GNR 2009 as 100th lady in 1:37. I joined Heaton Harriers the next week and 5 weeks later finished The Great Cumbrian run in 1:32. Clearly I had some sort of talent for this stuff so I stuck with it … In 2010 I finished 2nd lady (just ahead of Liz McColgan) and last year I qualified for the Elite at GNR having broken 80mins at Wilmslow Half and did canny in the London Marathon…
There’s more on my backstory and London in my personal blog, read it by clicking here
There is more on more GNR experience by clicking here
Why read my blog then? Well I’m pretty fascinated by running and will read anything and everything out there, follow the trends and I’ve learned a fair bit about health and fitness over the years and am still learning. Other things you might not know – I almost started the Newcastle ParkRun, I worked for Cancer Research UK for a bit organizing Race for Life, I’m a qualified Fitness Instructor, I’m addicted to buying trainers, I’m often nearly sick with nerves on the way to a training session, I’ve ran 2 marathons, I averaged 75 mile a week last year, I’ve got a large collection of Race T-Shirts still in their packets as for some reason I won’t wear them? I absolutely hate swimming – because basically I can’t. And the only way I can get through an ice batch is to sing (very loudly!) with my headphones in and my iPod on full blast – which the husband quite often records and plays back to our friends after a few Sauvignon Blancs.
I’ve also got a fantastic coach in Steve O’Gara and a great group at Wallsend Harriers, who’ve got more than a few tales to tell … and of course – I’m a distance runner so I’m on the roads that much that there’s always a new story each week isn’t there!?
We’re injuries waiting to happen us distance runners lot apparently? But hey – all part of the fun! Bring on the Ethiopian Easy’s, the failed fartlek efforts and the potters around the ParkRun …
So that’s the backstory – next time round I’ll tell you what I’ve been up to....
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You can also follow Stacey on Twitter @RogersIsRunning and www.rogersisrunning.com