Blog
There are some wonderful off-road routes around Taunton – along the canal, over the Quantocks, through the Blackdown hills. Yet more and more often, I find myself hitting pavements and tarmac.
I wrote recently about the joys of running alone. But a downside of solo running as a woman is a tendency to stick to roads to feel ‘safe’.
ChiRunning’s taught me a great deal, about my running and myself. But the biggest lesson is the power of gradual progress: learning slowly day by day, baby step by baby step. Taking the time to master each stage before moving to the next, until what seemed impossibly difficult becomes simple, natural, part of who you are. Gradual progress has taken me from perennially injured runner, barely able to run for 20 minutes, to completing my first marathon for 12 years.
June 2010, less than three weeks to go before a 5K race and it happened again. Chronic Achilles tendonosis that left me hobbling round the house in pain. And this after countless bouts of expensive physio and cutting my running right back to just one or two 20 minute jogs a week. Maybe my body just wasn’t designed to run?
