Beyond5k

I ran for the first time since leaving school when I started Couch to 5k during lockdown in 2020. Many people have done C25K, but I wonder what people do afterwards? What is there for them Beyond 5k? I used to be a keen cyclist, but over the past the last 5 years I have become an obsessed runner. What happened to me that drove this conversion? There have been some key turning points, and it is these that I plan to write about in “Beyond5k”. My thoughts on running will be published as blogs and some of them will form the “bones” of a possible book. Charles Dickens serialized many of his novels in weekly or monthly magazines before they were published in book form, and that is what I plan to do with my “book”. The comparison with Dickens ends there – my world of work was filled with architecture diagrams, flow charts, sequence diagrams and code, not words. I have the story mapped out in my head, and broadly the chapters will be:

1. The beginning – C25K
   • my first 5k
2. The last Dragon
   • the end of my love of cycling
3. Rogers Runners
   • the joy of conversational pace running
4. First parkrun
   • It had to be done!
5. Stuck in a rut
   • what next
6. Coach Kat
   • the start of the transformation
7. The Kat Curve
   • The gravity of age vs training
8. 6 PBs in 2024
   • All time PBs and 74% age grade
9. December 2024, a golden month
   • The secret to success
10. The real agony of Injury
    • It’s not physical
11. Goals
    • 80% age grade
12. What next
    • ?

I do not have a timescale for publishing these chapters, and they are unlikely to be published in order!