The Last Lap

I hope fellow blippers will excuse me if I indulge in something of a personal milestone today. You see, when I was out for a run this morning in Renfrew it struck me, that with our house there being sold next week, this would be the last time I would run the 5 mile route from our house, which I have done regularly for the past 30 years.

I have always found running great for clearing the mind and thinking through things. How many times had I run this route? As I plodded along I worked out the sums and reckoned it must be about 3000 times. All those years of getting home from work and getting on the running shoes fair adds up! So how many miles had I covered in the 30 years? Some more mental arithmetic and I came up with the figure of 30,000 miles, just about the same as my 3 year old car has done!

So how much time had I spent running? Well in my heyday I could complete a marathon in 6 minutes 30 seconds a mile. Now its more like 8.30 a mile or slower! Again some more sums and I got to a figure of about 4000 hours or roughly 166 days running. That equates to about 5 and a half months or 1.5% of my life for 30 years. No wonder I felt tired at the end of the run just thinking about it.

I really only started running so I could try and stay fit and healthy while our children were growing up. However, a bit like Blip, it got a hold of me and before I knew it I had set targets to complete a marathon. While the competitive side of running waned a long time ago, the bug remained and I would often find myself out on this route after work, in the wind and pouring rain, out of shear habit having made no real obvious decision to do so!

Running has been a wonderful part of my life and I have had the privilege of meeting lots of great people through it. I have also seen places in this country and abroad that I would never have got to had I not been running. So thank you running for everything you have given me, other than, of course, the worn joints!!