Brody The Runner

  Last year I participated in the Belfast City Marathon Relay with AG Wilson and ran the 3rd and 4th leg which totaled about 9 miles which was the longest distance I had ever ran. It was an enjoyable experience, so when the opportunity to run the relay in 2025 came up, I had to take it.  The months leading up to the marathon included an injury and a fight with the flu, but then turned into a period of consistent training and my joint fastest 5k time. So, going into the relay I was feeling good. The main goal from the relay was to test my fitness to see if I was ready for the 10K as  I planned to do a couple of 10Ks over the next couple of months. I arrived on the train to Grand Central and met up with the other members of Team AG Wilson. Then I caught a train to York Street Station with the other members who were doing leg 5. After waiting a while I then decided to do a warm up - It was difficult to find a good warm up spot as the area was very crowded. I did manage to fi...

  Introduction Running in the winter is a challenging experience for most runners but also an exciting period because of the new year. Every year I have always found the winter period the hardest which causes me to run less and run slower. Here are my reasons why running is hard during the winter and some recommendations to make it easier. (Image description: Me at a cross country event in icy conditions) 1. The weather Probably everybody’s least favourite reason for running is the weather. Personally, the cold weather tires me out before I even start running. The cold weather also makes my hands ache more than my legs or feet. Therefore, I waste a lot of time holding back on running, because I know it is going to be difficult. Icy conditions put me at risk of falling and if they are really bad could force me not to run at all and stay inside and ride my exercise bike ( which is boring and the bike is broken). During the winter, running gloves and an underlayer are a must, or else ...

  As a parkrunner , volunteering is a great way to give back to the communit y. For me volunteering is as big a journey as running p arkruns . You get to talk to people you don’t normall y talk to, and you get to see your favourite course at a different angle. Anyways, this is my experience of volunteering at Park run.   (Image description: Me with my parkrunner of the month shirt. I got it in a month where I volunteered regularly. I might fit into it someday)  So, for the first year at Parkrun I did not volunteer at all , the idea of not running for one week put me off from volunteering.  My mum would always remind me to volunteer, but I still wouldn’t do it.   However, on the same week I was running the Portadown 10K, I decided to volunteer as a way to give back to the community and get something off my bucket list. A benefit of being a volunteer that week was partly the number pick up for the Portadown 10K was at City Park . Kill two birds with one...

  While making these blogs, I reflected on the training I was doing at th at time. It was interesting how different my training was and if you remember back in my first parkrun post, to me, it didn't make sense . This got me thinking about how my training plan progressed and what were the key events tha t changed it.   So, let’s take a look at the evolution of my training.   Now, at beginning, just before my first parkrun I had no idea how to make a training plan. I knew that some days should focus on speed , and some should focus on distance, but that was about it. I didn’t know what a recovery run , intervals or tempo run was. So, for the first month my training was all over the place. There wa s ver y little consistency between weeks, and for the most part it looked like I did what ever I felt like . Notable things I would do during this period included  not run ning over 5k, running on a Sunday, and a strange ob session with the 1 mile, since I like...