My 2019: yep, Lauren definitely runs now

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 changed me and what I want to remember from the experiences. 

I'm a runner

Reading my intro post back, I'm immediately struck by the title: 'wait, Lauren runs now?'. A year into running at that point, the idea that I was a runner still dumbfounded me.

After 12 10k races this year, I think it's safe to say I'm comfortable admitting I'm a runner.

I'll even go one step up and say I'm an athlete. That's the harder one to admit.

But I've got 12 shiny finisher medals from this year that make me comfortable saying these phrases. If what I did can't be described as 'athletic', I'm not sure what can.

That looks like a runner to me.

Also, randomly, Nike has played a part in boosting my comfort with this admission. I did a presentation for work this year on what organizations put on their About pages on their websites. In my research, I came across Nike's.

Nike About page

It uses the word 'athlete' in its mission statement followed by an asterisk (*). The asterisk mark explains: 'if you have a body, you are an athlete'*.

When I first read this in May, it dawned on me that I had this concept of what an athlete looks like or how fast or strong they must be.

But that concept I had was rubbish. Athletes come in all shapes and sizes and have different abilities.

What we have in common is we do something with our bodies. We push ourselves, we achieve, we have setbacks, and we come back for more.

I also know I'm comfortable admitting I'm a runner because I can walk into a running shop and feel like I belong there and I know what I'm doing. 

Compare this to some bike shops I went to on Black Friday where I felt very out of place and had absolutely no idea what I was looking for.

Ah, bikes. Just another athletic challenge to tackle. One day. 

*If you have this particular body, you wear New Balance. Sorry, Nike, but thanks for the inspiration. 

I'm confident on my own

I think the most important takeaway I have from this year is my newfound confidence. I don't think I ever thought of myself as not being confident, but I can feel a stark difference to a year ago.

A lot of this confidence has to do with being on my own - more specifically, traveling on my own. 

I remember during the first few trips that while I was excited to go, I still woke up with this nervous feeling around the 'getting there' bit. I was worried about making my trains, knowing where I was going, and what strikes or delays might come about.

I think my Aberystwyth post highlighted how much I've changed in this regard. I'm an adventurer who goes with the flow now.

That time I was meant to take 2 trains, but it turned into 3 and a bus.

Hopping on trains has become so habitual there's nothing to get nervous about. Google Maps is there to direct me when I get where I'm going.

I might get lost in the woods along the way, but all it means is I'll have more amusing stories to tell.

I also have noticed a confidence around being a solo female traveler in the night hours.

It sucks to say it, but I'm pretty sure most women experience this. You get nervous when you're out on your own, in a new place, at night, on an empty street, and some dude passes you.

Or at least, I used to get nervous in that situation. My shift in thinking became apparent in Brighton when I arrived in a new city in the dark.

Dark Brighton, no fear.

I did not feel nervous passing people on empty streets. I'm not walking around afraid of anybody anymore. 

Instead, I'm thinking people should be afraid of me. I'm super-confident-runner-lady. You don't mess with me.

It must be said, navigating the world fearlessly is a very nice feeling.

I can run in the morning

One of my biggest apprehensions when I came up with this idea was that most races were in the morning, and I was not a good morning runner. 

I'd still say it's my least favorite time to run, but I know I am very much capable of it.

I feel like I can roll out of bed and run 10k. This is basically what happened in the US when I ran the unexpected 7.5 mile race.

Pretty much ran 7.5 miles in my sleep.

I can handle big changes

My Tenby run saw me through the most important situational change of the year: getting okay with the idea of taking a new job.

I couldn't write about it at the time, so I wanted to use this post to talk about the emotional rollercoaster I was dealing with that weekend.

I won't get into the full details, but basically, I found out on the train ride down on Friday that I had until Monday morning to decide if I wanted to move jobs to a new team. 

For most people, a new job with more money would be a no-brainer. But I'm living through a weird time at the moment, and I was very emotionally reliant on the team I was working with.

All of a sudden, I had a weekend to decide if I was ready to leave the people who make my days a lot brighter. I honestly didn't know how I was going to make a decision in such a short time. 

I was so looking forward to enjoying my weekend in Tenby. I was unprepared for being filled with such anxiety. I felt unstable. I found myself constantly on the verge of tears.

I knew I couldn't reach this decision on my own, so I spent the weekend calling everyone who cares about me to get their thoughts.

I didn't want somebody to tell me what to do, but I thought talking it through would help me reach a conclusion.

Every family member I spoke with said I should take the new job, but I didn't feel any closer to making a decision. Time kept ticking. 

Then I spoke to 2 friends. One I used to work with, and one I was currently working with. When they both said to take the job, it started to click with me that maybe it was the right time to take this next step.

Capable runner Lauren could handle this change.

I remember very clearly standing on Castle Beach on the Sunday night having finally achieved a sense of clarity and that I felt okay to take this new opportunity. I wanted to take it.

(And by 'take', I mean I still had to apply for this job, but it was extremely likely I would get it. And I did.)

I even took a selfie (of course) to mark the occasion. I posted it on the blog, but without the correct context. So here it is again, with a more appropriate caption.

How I looked when I decided in Tenby to change jobs.

I said in my Tenby post that it was my proudest run, and this was partially why (again, just couldn't write that at the time). 

I've already mentioned my newfound confidence from these running trips, and I know this was instrumental in me reaching this decision. 

Plus, the very act of reaching it boosted my confidence even further. Now having made that job change and handling it much better than expected, confidence is flying through the roof.

I can talk to strangers

Boy, have I come a long way with this one. It's not that I couldn't talk to strangers before this year, but I would have never gone out of my way to do so. Nor did I think it would ever lead to enjoyment.

There are a lot of different stranger elements related to these runs. First up, 2019 was my first year using Airbnb. Because if you don't like talking to strangers, staying at their house is a good way to dip your toes in the water.

Using Airbnb was mainly born out of the desire to save money on these runs, but it soon turned into a choice I actively sought out. (Though, ultimately, whatever option cost least won out.)

When you're on your own, staying in someone's house is a lot nicer than a hotel or B&B. It means there's one guaranteed person you'll get to have a genuine conversation with.

I got off to a great start spending 3 hours talking to my first host in Liverpool the night I got there. My Lincoln host picked me up from the train station. My Manchester hosts gave me free poutine. I had lovely breakfast chats with my Brighton host.

Stay with strangers, get poutine.

Then there were the race chats and actually making good use of the idle time before the starts to talk to fellow runners.

When in doubt, my go-to line was, 'have you done this race before?'. Smooth.

Thanks to pre-race chatting, I had a memorable walk to Weybridge talking to some guys about immigration in the UK. I met Sally on the bus to the Wales 10k start line, and we ended up running the Ayr race together. I spoke with a woman in Brighton who was hiding from her running group to prove she could do a race on her own.

Talk to strangers, get a running buddy.

This was technically a pre pre-race chat, but the fellow American expat marathon runner I met on the plane to Bristol is now my running pen pal. How cool is that.

Before closing this section off, I of course have to mention the most important stranger interaction: the shift to asking people to take my post-finish medal photo.

Pre-Lincoln, I was in full selfie mode for these, but it's kind of difficult to do a selfie with phone in one hand, medal in the other.

At Lincoln, someone saw me struggling and offered to take my photo. From that race on, I always went up to a friendly stranger to take my photo. The scenery in these is a lot better because of it.

If you don't go the selfie route, you actually get to see cool things in the background.

I like running hills

My intro post also said I wanted to avoid races with hills and mud.

I still feel very anti-mud, but I think I kind of like hills now. I don't love them, and Peebles showed me that there is such a thing as too steep to run. 

If you run the hills, you get the views.

But I like a little challenge in the run to keep it interesting. Liverpool was by far the flattest and most boring run. I need some incline to spice it up a little.

This all became true after the Wales 10k, a race I didn't realize was hilly before getting there.

Not everyone could run those hills, but I did. It was that pride I felt from running them that made me more pro-hill. If I'm capable, surely I should push myself a little harder.

Ever since, I have found myself sometimes actively seeking out routes in Edinburgh that are a bit more challenging. 

I've got city soundtracks

In my Aberystwyth post, I talked about my 2019 master playlist. 

I get this master playlist because every Friday, I listen to the New Music Friday playlist on Spotify and save the songs I like to a yearly playlist.

As a result of the runs, my 2019 playlist feels very place-nostalgic. There are a few songs that come up when I do 'shuffle play' that make me think, 'This reminds me of Manchester', or 'I listed to this on the way to the Bath run'.

I like that.

Plus, I have a playlist for every 10k race I ran, so I have a sizable collection of nostalgia trips to rotate through when I'm running around Edinburgh.

I love the UK

This is the last point I want to make before I get into my final wrap-up and looking ahead bits.

Prior to these runs, I had spent 7 years in the UK and had barely seen any of it. I had never been to Wales. I had never taken the West Coast train line.

I've started making up for that now, and I'm only going to keep on doing so.

None of my runs took me to Northern Ireland, sadly. This wasn't intentional. I did go looking for them, but they were not that easy to search for. Or I found ones in months I had already committed to other races. I'll get a race there someday.

For now, it's cool to look at the map below and think of all the new places I've seen because of running.

I've talked in my posts about my love for Wales, but really this year has reaffirmed how much I love the UK. This place is definitely home for me.

What 2019 looks like in...

That was the emotional recap. Let's talk numbers and figures.

Money spent

Seeing as I was money-conscious this year, I kept a spreadsheet of how much I spent on each trip. 

Each figure includes the race fee, travel, accommodation, food and whatever else I spent money on while there. 

• Carlisle: £109.54
• Liverpool: £121.27
• Anglesey: £209.33
• Lincoln: £133.60
• Manchester: £135.35
• Weybridge: £132.19
• Tenby: £317.60
• Bristol/Bath: £209.54
• Ayr: £72.59
• Peebles: £25
• Brighton: £194.31
• Aberystwyth: £149.60

Total spent: £1809.92

Average cost per race: £150.83

Not bad for 12 mini vacations. Well, Peebles was just a day, but still.

Finishing times

1. Ayr: 56:05
2. Aberystwyth: 56:39
3. Anglesey: 57:00
4. Brighton: 57:22
5. Manchester: 58:30
6. Carlisle: 58:59
7. Bristol/Bath: 59:00
8. Weybridge: 59:07
9. Tenby: 59:12
10. Liverpool: 59:15
11. Lincoln: 1:00:26
12. Peebles: 1:17:15

I clearly have an affinity for A place names. 

I won't get into the 10k PB/finishing time discrepancy again. We know my real 10k PB was Aberystwyth at 55:15.

I said I wanted all races under an hour, and I nearly got there. Lincoln was unfortunate with its bottleneck at the start of the race. Trail running in Peebles was a different breed of sport.

It still amazes me there's only a 3-second difference between the flattest (Liverpool) and hilliest (Tenby) road races.

My favorite race

The woman in Brighton who I had the pre-race chat with asked me which of my 2019 races was my favorite. I think the natural inclination would be to go where the PB goes. 

Granted, getting a PB definitely contributes to the good vibes of a race weekend. But I'm going to have to go for number 9 on that list: Tenby.

In this post, I covered how Tenby led to the conquering of hills and mentally getting okay with changing jobs, but there was also:

• the Olympic-like atmosphere
• how gorgeous it was
• getting to walk the coastal path before the race
• chatting to Sally and other runners on the bus ride to the start
• the 10+ hour train ride to get there

It was pretty epic.

That being said, ultimately, each race was special to me in its own way. I mean, getting the PB in Ayr followed by the spectacular air show was amazing.

But Tenby was like suuuuuper special. It felt like a real turning point for me, which just so happened to come halfway through the year.

One last time for some Tenby gushing.

(I guess the emotional recap for this post wasn't actually over.)

Medals, running bibs and train tickets

12 races meant 12 medals, 12 running bibs, and an obscene number of train tickets.

I wanted to capture what they all looked like together, so I asked for the expert photography skills of TartonZone Media (aka Tim, who did the Peebles run with me).

TartanZone Twitter

TartanZone Instagram

Tim meant serious business, and I couldn't believe the kit set-up I saw when I went to take these photos.

It was pretty cool to wear all the medals at once. Also, very heavy.

Just trying to keep my neck upright.

The train tickets were as thick as a deck of cards.

Enough tickets to turn into a fan.

We did a lot of jumping shots where I discovered I have trouble jumping on cue.

Jumping sideways was even more difficult.

And for whatever reason, I thought planking was a good pose to go for.

Each medal with its respective bib.

All in all, it was good fun, and I like that I had the chance to get all the running paraphernalia together. Thanks a million, Tim!

What's happening in 2020

2019 was the year of 10k races. 2020 will see me step it up a notch: half marathons.

I've booked on to 2 already. I'll do at least 1 more. I ran my first half marathon distance on Thanksgiving, but next year will be my first time doing it in an official race.

I'm not doing a half marathon a month, though. That's an extra time and financial commitment I'm not looking to make in the new year.

Instead, 2020 is going to be more varied. I've also got 2 10k races lined up already. I'm sure other stuff will come about.

What will stay the same is the blogging. I was apprehensive about starting this, but I'm so glad I did. I missed long-form writing about my life. 

Next race

Edinburgh Winter Run

I got an email about this at work only 2 weeks ago, and a lot of colleagues have signed up. So this will definitely be my most social race so far. And nice and quick - it's only 5k.

Looking forward to it and the 13.1 mile madness to come. Goodbye 2019, and hello 2020.