What Suzi Did Next

After my last post, my sub 5 triumph at the Hamburg Marathon, I kind of never wanted to update this blog again. It seemed like the perfect end to my story. If I never ran again, if I decided to take up knitting instead or if I got hit by a lorry the next day and my broken remains scattered round the streets of Hamburg, it wouldn’t matter, because I would have done it, and no one could take it away from me now.

It wasn’t the real end of the story though. I didn’t take up knitting and I didn’t get hit by a lorry. I carried on running, and completely to my surprise, I found that I could still make improvements despite the fact that my marathon performance was the absolute pinnacle of what someone like me could possibly be capable of. I still can’t entirely believe that I have run a 26:19 parkrun or that I have now knocked nearly half an hour off that 2016 half marathon PB that I dreamed of beating for eight long years. I think that if you met me today you’d genuinely have no idea of how useless I used to be.

So I joined a running club!

This is something I said I would absolutely never do because:

1. I work shifts and I hate committing myself to something and then not being able to attend every single session.
2. I didn’t want to wear the same vest as everyone because I am a goth at heart and can’t deal with conformity.
3. Running clubs are full of people who were good at PE at school and they would instantly identify me as an imposter and flush my head down the toilet.

However after turning up to a few “running club” type races where I knew absolutely no one but everyone was perfectly nice to me and several suggested that I join their running club. Having weighed up the options, I decided to give East London Runners a go. They were the winners out of a number of serious contenders because:

1. They have a track session on Mondays and I don’t have anything else to do on Monday evenings since they cancelled yoga at Poplar Baths.
2. The vest is red which goes well with my mango-coloured hair.
3. I like the name because it instantly identifies where you are from, unlike something like Victoria Park Harriers which could be anywhere.

So I went along to one of their Monday night track sessions and would you believe it, the first thing someone said to me was “you look like a runner!” I could not believe it! If only they knew! I had them totally fooled. Not one person tried to flush my head down the toilet and they were all in fact really nice people. I signed up the next day and never looked back. I have done several races in my lovely red vest and to my absolute surprise and delight I was named Club Runner of the Month for November. But that’s not it – you’ll never believe what they got me doing yesterday… but that’s for the next post.