The year kicked off with me making plans for all the events that I would be doing in 2016. Unfortunately, as is often the case, I didn’t attend all of them.
The biggy of the year was the LDWA Hundred in Dorset in May. In preparation, I squeezed in a few long walks including a few through the night.
One of the longer training walks was the annual, forty mile, A Coventry Way which I completed in 15:53.
A week or so later, I took part in one of the LDWA’s local group walks traversing Birmingham from Sutton to Barnt Green.
As the May Day Bank Holiday arrived, I made my way down to Weymouth on the South coast for my attempt at the hundred.
I went down, by train, the day before the event with the rest of the family (my support crew) arriving the following day.
On the day of the event, I made way to the start and was away by mid-day.
To cut a long story short, I started too quickly, didn’t eat properly and generally didn’t respect the distance which resulted in me dropping out after forty miles at checkpoint 5.
My crew swept me into the car and whisked me off back to HQ.
We spent the rest of the week holidaying around Dorset.
There were some changes on the job front for both of us with Sue moving out to Wolverhampton whilst I moved nearer home to Digbeth.
I started working days but soon switched to a continental shift pattern. With all that time off and Sue on Wolverhampton, I was able to get in some decent walks, mainly along the canals, between Birmingham and Wolverhampton.
I don’t know what came over me, but I switched back to running (and walking). I even re-joined my old running club (Centurions RC).
I did a few parkruns (best 25:32) and at least one of the Centurion’s Grand Prix events – 5 miles in 44:59.
The highlight of my running year was have the honour of running the Sneyd Christmas Pudding race with an old workmate who, having had major heart surgery, was running to raise money the British Heart Foundation.
