This week I turn my attention to some of the people that are running with me on my training (mainly because I want to ignore the fact I missed my long run on Sunday).
They’re all taking part in the self-named £2 training plan. Come help me train, give me £2 for charity.
I did my two hour training run on Friday and split it into two parts. Ran with Alex the first half and Mike and Dale the second.
I’ve known Alex since we were around 16, both working in our first jobs at the same company. Me full time, Alex while he was still at school. We became friends through a mutual mischievous streak at the super-strict company where we’d talk lots when the bosses were in meetings, see who could get a leg to the top of the filing cabinet (I am still not quite sure why we did this), see how close to the starting ‘beeps’ we could get in the morning (we had to be at our desks ready to start work before the beeps!) and socialise outside of work (it was frowned upon).
Exercise wise, we had a brief period of going to the gym together but as I hated the gym it was never going to work. I have a feeling we played some kind of racket sport too but can’t remember which one. We then teamed up a few years ago when I’d got back into running and did a zombie run and then Lincoln half marathon last year, so I called on him to spend an hour bimbling around West Common and having a catch up, rather than our usual catch up of Italian food or bread-based snacks.
Mike and Dale I worked with at the University of Lincoln. They are founding members of the ICT Unofficial Running Club (ICT URC) that we set up when I was on a mission to find people to run with. Unable to find anyone who already ran, I just made these two take up running. And they love me for it 😉
They’re still running, 4+ years on and have 10k PBs to be proud/jealous of. On Friday we followed one of our old routes (along the river down to and past the Pyewipe) and had a great catch up, mainly about my upcoming New Zealand adventures and office gossip, to which I still realise that not much changes once you leave somewhere.
They all gave me a few quid towards my fundraising at www.justgiving.com/tara-papworth – thank you so much guys 🙂
The Paps Life 