Anna’s Month In Running – December 

It’s great to be able to write a “month in running” blog now that the cat is finally out of the bag and I can talk about the fact that I’m having a baby in 2024! 

I have spoken to my midwife about running through pregnancy and she’s happy that I continue with what I’m used to doing (although when I mentioned running ultras she said that probably wasn’t the best idea!) and to listen to my body with it, so that’s exactly my plan. Every one is different with running in pregnancy, and it can even vary from pregnancy to pregnancy for some people. For the first three months of pregnancy, I had been feeling very nauseous and tired and hadn’t really been able to get much running in.  My goal for the first trimester was literally just to run a 5k a week, which usually came in the form of parkrun, as I was just so tired from working during the week that I often didn’t feel up to it. So this month started off with a verrrrrry chilly Daventry parkrun. My Strava activity from that day says the temperature was Feels Like -5C! I wanted to practise running at a 30 min 5k pace for this run, as I knew I had some Running Channel filming coming up (keep reading for more about that), which meant I needed to be able to run at that pace. I paced the first 4 kms of the parkrun at 6 mins per km and then, for the final km, I was feeling good, so I pushed the pace a bit more. Running at the moment, and for the next 6 months or so isn’t going to be about times for me, but still having little goals is feeling really good for me. 

The following week, I travelled to London for the aforementioned Running Channel filming; running a 30 min 5k and being filmed continuously for it – no stops or pauses! Just a one take wonder. It’s probably the most nervous I’ve felt for any filming for The Running Channel, which is mad, considering I’ve been doing this for 5 years now! It turns out that I had nothing to be nervous about. Tom and Tito were on filming duties and the three of us had a lovely afternoon running around Victoria Park. You can watch the video here. That’s probably one of the last times that I will be trying to run a particular distance in a certain time for a while.

My 5k parkruns during pregnancy continued throughout December with the return of my home parkrun, Rugby, which hasn’t been on since I filmed my 100th parkrun video there because the ground has been so wet and muddy that the council called it off for a few weeks. It was lovely to be back though, even if a new start confused all of us and we all went the wrong way. It just meant clocking up a few extra hundred metres! Because this run was the last one before Christms, I had to get the festive running t shirt out too. 

Not content with parkunning the Saturday before Christmas Day, I also went insearch of my 5k fix on Christmas Day itself. Another local parkrun to me, Leamington, was putting on a  special extra event on Christmas Day, which I went along to. I’ve run on Christmas Day (and usually at parkrun) for pretty much every year since becoming a runner. I don’t know what it is about it, but there just seems to be something special about starting off Christmas with a nice little run. This was the first time I had done Leamington, although I’m familiar with the course, as I have run there myself and in other events before. It’s got a pretty sizeable hill, mud and puddles and gorgeous woodland scenery. What’s not to love? 

That’s all from me for this month, but next month I’ll be filling you all in on what I have planned for the next few weeks and months and there’ll be more running to report back on now that I don’t feel quite so awful! 

Happy running and happy new year!