Oh dear, so I knew this would happen if I joined a running blog weekly wrap. Yes, I am going to have to admit I ran ONCE this week and only 7 miles. However, there were extenuating circumstances.

Monday – Because I’d not run long at the weekend, having run last on Saturday, I arranged to go out for a long run with my friend Claire. As well as being one for consuming egg sandwiches during marathons and having introduced me to pea protein crisps (well, the idea of them), she’s also keen on going off-road and doing all those amazing races where you climb up, over and through stuff. Fair play to her – not for me! Anyway, we wanted a shady run as it was HOT so set off to get onto the canals, which I now fear less – hooray (I have a horrible fear of getting tipped into the canal by a bike).

So off we went and it was lovely, so peaceful, just a few cyclist and walkers who said hello. We then came off the canals and started to trace a route through lots of shady and pleasant park and recreation ground bits, very nice. We reached an area that was grassy paths and Claire apologised for taking me off-road. “Oh, no, it’s FINE,” said I, “I’m not training for anything and I need to get used to traily stuff in case I ever do an ultra”.

And with that, I caught the rubber toe bit of my right trainer under some weird mesh/plastic stuff that was on the ground to keep it from getting slippy (oh, the irony). BAM I went down. And swore, a lot, and cried when I’d picked myself up a bit (are you a swearer or cryer when you fall? I swore when my friend Louise fell when she was with me and she didn’t even – oops!). I knew I wasn’t hurt badly but we couldn’t work out if I’d hit my head (I think I did, but on my arm), so Claire very kindly got me up, dusted me down and walked with me to the nearest bus route. We were right in the domain of our sister running club, Bournville Harriers, and I was hoping for a Bournvillian to magically appear and take me home, but we got the number 11.

I got off with a scraped and bruised left elbow and right forearm and a scraped and bruised left knee, and a bit of a twisted left ankle and a bruised left hip. I had a lot of lower back pain later in the week, I think from twisting. But falling on a grassy surface meant no gravel or dirt to clean out. I think Claire felt worse than me – it’s awful when someone falls on a run you’ve planned, isn’t it! But no blame attached: these things happen. Three falls in about 17 years of running isn’t bad …

Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to do yoga as I just was too sore and there were too many parts I didn’t want to press onto the ground. It’s been really HOT in the UK, so it’s not been a bad week not to run. I did rip my trainers irrevocably – why is it always fairly new trainers???

Saturday – I volunteered at parkrun (I was supposed to be leading Run and Talk afterwards but was still a bit sore. We had a special guest – the amazing Mr Fauja Singh, 107 years old and a record-breaking marathon runner. His marathon time aged 92 beat mine aged 46! He was attending parkrun today along with loads of lovely runners from the Ramgarhia Sikh Temple in central Birmingham who have completed a Couch to 5k programme and were running their first 5k today. What an honour to cheer them (and everyone else, of course) round!

After this I went over to the Alexander Stadium with Matthew to watch the British Athletics Championships over two days. What a marvellous two days this was, even though it was really hot. Here are some photos of the events.

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I’m feeling a lot better now and hoping to try a run early Monday morning as I’m tail-running for our running club’s 4-miler on Tuesday night … wish me luck!

Miles this week: 7.6

Progress towards 1,000 miles in the year: 503 miles (yay – more than on track still!)

Wendy’s weekly wrap is here and Holly’s is here.