Last Sunday the wife and I ran the Eastbourne half marathon. It was her 3rd or 4th time running that kind of distance and my first!

She came into the living one day last summer while I was reclining on the sofa stuffing myself with something unhealthy. She announced that she had signed up for the EB half marathon, I said well done, you can do it and other assorted confidence building phrases. As she walked out the room, over her shoulder she said "Ive signed you up too". Bugger.

Cut forward several months of parkruns (5km), running to, then doing, then running back from parkruns (16km) and training along the south downs with hills (5-15km), we (more so me) were ready (ish). Most I had run was 17km, so 21km was still a bit daughting! Anyway, we turned up and ran and ran and ran and ran, then we ran a bit more and finally after 2 hours 32 minutes I got across the finish line, wife was 2h34m! I wasnt worried about my time, I just wanted to make sure that I ran the whole thing and didnt give up, which I didnt so mission accomplished even with the massive steep hill up to near Beachy Head!

Please excuse the photos, I am not photogenic at the best of times and running really doesnt help ??

Before:

 

During: Sorry for the watermark, but I didnt fancy paying £20 for two photos of me looking like I had poo'ed myself.

 

After:

I urge you all to try running. I wouldn't say I enjoy it the same way as I enjoy watching rugby, driving my zed or playing PC games. However there is a sense of accomplishment and satifaction when you complete something and/or better your time. My first ever 5km parkrun was terrible, I had to walk parts of it and did it in 40-something minutes. I can now do it in 28minutes. Parkruns happen all over the world every Saturday at 9am. Its free to sign up & free to take part. Its not a race and you can run/jog/walk depending how you feel, no pressure. The people that go are really supportive and ive come to enjoy them every Saturday. Ive lost about 15kg since running. Check out parkrun here:

https://www.parkrun.org.uk/

Well done folks....!

Congratulations to you both! Looks like the Golden Retreiver was up for it too!

He was! Did a better time than us too!

Well done, I did one in 2017. The road to it was paved with injuries and set backs and I had a bloody cold the day of the event. I kind of stopped after that but I’m back running now, like you I wouldn’t say I enjoy it, there’s moments where it kind of clicks but mostly I find it helps my mind and keeps the beer belly at bay. 

Well done to you both a great achievement mate.