My Journey from 1 to 100(m)

Alreet?  Thought I’d begin with how I always greet people, especially on race days.  I may live in the West Midlands now, but I will always be a Geordie at heart.  Hence why I run in shorts and T-shirts in all weather conditions!

So welcome to my first running blog!  It’s been a long time coming I must admit.   I’ve been promising myself and others that I would blog about my running journey since 2019!

Didn’t work out but here we are at last!  I think maybe I spent too much effort at times thinking of a catchy name for my blogs when I would have been better off actually writing it.  I won’t go through the various ideas I had and trust me there were a lot!  Honourable mentions to ‘The Other Bolt,’ ‘Running 422 100m,’ and ‘Run Singh Run.’   Only 1 of these was my idea!

In the end I settled for a title that has a double meaning and captures where I am at this moment in time with my running; Usingh – My Journey to 100M.   The ‘m’ is most definitely not for metres!  On the 1 hand it represents the 1 distance I still want to crack within the next 2 years, 100 Miles.  Secondly, it is to capture my journey to completing 100 official full Marathons.  Unofficially I’ve already done at least 100 runs of marathon distance.  But it gives me to something to focus on longer term, say the next 5 years or so.  As I type, I am at 47 on this journey.  Like so many of you Covid-19 has affected some of my expected numbers.  But hey, we’re runners.  We love the challenge, and we know it never quite goes to plan.  But we persevere.

So, the first blog isn’t going be too long. This is just a quick summary about me and then I’ll blog about running memories, the mistakes I’ve made, the things that have worked, memorable races, memorable people, the running challenges, the way running has improved me as a person and so much more. And also, the things that still puzzle me about running! 

If anyone wants to fire questions at me feel free to do so. I hope that my experiences will show that you really can aim big with your running (or anything in your life you enjoy doing) and achieve it. The key is belief and being prepared to work hard for it. Never really lacked the first, although I definitely was overconfident when I did my first half and full marathons and learnt the hard way how important the second one was. Hard work is exactly that.  But the hard work will and does pay dividends. Took me about 6 full marathons to realise that.

So, let’s keep this brief. Did my first half marathon in Sept 2006. My first full in April 2007 and my first ultra (69 miles) in June 2015. My first 10K race? Hold onto your seats here. Dec 2015!! I waited until I had done 30 half marathons, 14 fulls and said ultra before I got round to doing a 10K race. More on that another time! March 2013 I did start Parkrun, which I love.  Again, a topic for another blog. You’ll know I like a challenge. I attempt JOGLE but had to abandon it 332 miles and 9 days in after soft tissue damage made it almost impossible for me to walk. And then July 2021, 31 marathons in 31 days. All things I’ll talk about, more than once I reckon, for as long as I keep this blogging up!

The first official blog next week will be about the number of aborted attempts to get into running. From the age of 10, into my teens, at uni and then into my 20’s. Even after those first 2 races my routine was enter 1 or 2 races a year. Wait until 3 months before race date, train, do the race (painfully for most of them), collect the medal and T, and stop running!!  It’s been quite a journey. But then every runner has their own journey, their own story. The ups and the downs. The moments of despair, elation, the tears shed (sometimes happy, sometimes not), the support, the relief. As a runner you go through the whole gamut of emotions, and I hope you’ll enjoy reading about my journey. I look back at a lot of it and think, it’s been interesting! And I hope that remains a feature of my running for many years to come. As I aim for the 100m, and then beyond.