Juneathon Day 1

Juneathon Day 1: run 7.25k, time 42 min

So it is Juneathon again and oh my do I need its discipline! I have struggled all year to try to maintain a consistent programme but failed, as one thing after another has popped up to derail my efforts. The result is that I feel heavy and sluggish and everything feels a much bigger effort than it should.

This will not do.

Juneathon is thus boot camp - a way of telling myself that I should try harder. But the plan is not to be stupid and push things too hard too fast (that would be the recipe for another collapse of some part of my body). Instead I will try to do something everyday but be fairly easy and relaxed - run gently and mix things up with other activities.

So how did day 1 go?

All I can say is that it went. Not brilliant but it has been done and I managed to get out of the door by 6am. The air was fairly chill and the sky was grey. It did not feel like June. I was expecting a lonely run but was surprised at the number of people around at that time: people walking their dogs, others walking to work, with ID cards swinging from their belts, one man was walking along in a quiet, contemplative way, smoking a cigarette and one other runner. All of us in our own ways preparing for the day.There was even a teenager cycling along on his BMX - that shattered another one of my preconceptions (surely one of the rules of the universe is that, during half-term holidays, all teenagers sleep till late).

I will try to take a photo on all of my Juneathon runs. Today’s is of a wheelbarrow abandoned on the trail. I have no idea why it was there or where it came from. Rarer than a shopping trolley it is just another wheeled object abandoned on a foot path.