Here are some top tips on running from some of our Angels…
When the going gets tough
My tip would be if you are doing a long run and the going is tough, and you are finding it a struggle, start to count to 20 looking down and then repeat the count of twenty, but this time look up – and so on. You’d be amazed how the time passes and you cover the distance.
Helen Bown
How to keep trainers looking like new!
Unlike Edwina and Val I hate cross country running and getting muddy and to keep my trainers lovely and white I spray them with waterproof shoe protector!
Lorna Dunn
A valuable lesson learned
I’m still an Angel at heart although I haven’t run for many years but I remember the lesson which I found hardest of all to learn. Having built up my distance gradually to a respectable 10k I thought all I had to do was learn to go faster. I used all the training methods available and patted myself on the back at the end of every session. What could possibly go wrong? And then it happened…..several years into my running career I was poleaxed!
Setting off on a beautiful Sunday morning along the road between Abbeymead and Brookthorpe - just where there were always scruffy wild looking sheep - I suddenly realised I had been going too fast and for the first time ever had to stop. In the past I had been able to run through bad patches by trotting at an almost walking pace but this time it didn’t work. I stood in the road feeling as if the world had collapsed. In all my running years I had never considered the possibility of stopping. The word just didn’t belong in my vocabulary. I felt such a failure that I turned around and walked home. In the days that followed I ran like a lop-sided elephant; no rhythm, no pace, no feeling of progress and no joy in my heart. My head kept saying’ “I can’t run”.
Luckily, the drug that is running kicked in and over the next few weeks I settled down to my regular training again but with one big difference….I had conquered the mental pain and accepted that stopping is part of running. Learning that lesson made me a more confident runner. I never became any faster but it ceased to bother me. The joy of cruising along country lanes on a quiet morning when you know that most other people are still in bed was reward enough.
Judy Kershaw
A painful experience
Do not wear someone elses trainers for a long run !!! Ouch muchly…
Mary Meadows
