Hackney Half - full circle moment.

Anyone who’s had a conversation with me in the past year already knows that I use the Nike run club app to track mileage, distance on shoes, and also for training plans. This is where both my half marathon and marathon plans come from, but way back in November 2021, I set off on the beginner’s training plan within the app.

Run by Coach Dora, this plan starts with a 7 minute run, and, over the course of 4 weeks increases duration up to the 4 mile mark. It took me around 4 weeks to begin this training plan, as I couldn’t run 7 minutes uninterrupted initially. What I loved about Dora’s coaching was the shame-free short runs. I was so hard on myself starting out, as I’d just assumed 7 minutes would be a given for me, but the positivity in her coaching in these runs taught me to view it all totally differently. A 7 minute run is a whole lot more than no run at all!

After completing the beginner training plan, and catching covid on the very last run of the plan, I had about 2 weeks of running intuitively, before signing up to the half marathon training plan, run by Coach Bennett. This was misguided, my fitness was unfortunately gone post covid, but at this point I really believed I was about 9 weeks out from my first half Marathon in Paris. Clearly this plan didn’t work out, and I regularly returned to Dora’s short runs, as a way of ensuring that I would at least complete one run. My fitness slowly returned, but if I could give any advice to other runners, don’t do what I did. Restart the beginners plan, take those wins, go easy on yourself, adjust your race expectations.

Almost exactly a month after my first half marathon in Germany, I just happened to be in London the weekend of the Hackney half. I’d already done one, I’d trained for another month, how hard could it be?

It was 24 degrees on the day of my second half marathon, A full 10 degrees hotter than Paderborn was, and I thought that was hot! I added 15 minutes to my PB, which was hard to swallow, but the last hour of the race was one of the most difficult things i’ve ever been through. It was getting hotter with every step I took, and at the pace I was run/walking, the finish line had never approached slower.

Looking up after this photo was taken by one of my new friends in the strava tent, I saw a face I’d recognise anywhere, a face that had lived in my phone for at least 4 weeks at the very beginning of my journey. You guys know it wouldn’t be like me to be shy, but I was starstruck.

“Hey, I was just wondering if you’re one of the Nike coaches”

It was Dora.

-to be continued-