LauRunning

Long story short, spending 2019 running 10k races around the UK was the best idea I ever had. It's so hard to jump with so much bling around your neck. Photo credit: TartanZone Meda. A year later, I'm a different person I started off 2019 with an intro post to the year ahead that I had planned out.  My 2019: wait, Lauren runs now?   I said in my intro post I was going to run a 10k each month because it was the best idea ever. And it was. But not for the reasons I thought it was going to be. A year ago, I thought this was the best idea because I thought traveling around the country and seeing and experiencing new things sounded pretty cool. In reality, it was the best idea ever because these experiences have changed me as a person (and for the better). The me going into 2020 feels more confident. More accomplished. More capable. So while the traveling and seeing new stuff was cool, I wanted to write an outro post to dig into the ways my 2019 has c

I ended my year of monthly races with an unexpected 10k PB (but 2nd best race time), reaffirming just how much I love Wales. Can you tell it was windy? Why Aberystwyth Aberystwyth was on my list of places to visit, and it has been for 10 years. I first heard of Aberystwyth in my university searches during high school. When I saw pictures of the Welsh seaside down, I thought it looked spectacularly beautiful. I was tempted to look at the university when I came for a visit in 2009, but ultimately didn’t. That was partially because it was out of the way from all the other (more eastern) unis I was visiting, and also, let’s face it, because it didn’t have a fancy enough reputation for my academic ego. Luckily, ‘spectacularly beautiful’ is one of my prime criteria for places to run a race in, so Aberystwyth made the cut this time. The journey I expected the journey to Wales to be quite seamless. It was a 6 and a half hour train ride, and I only had to switch once i