Charles: Day 365/365 - THE END! (or is it?)

DAY 365
The day has finally arrived after a full years (365 days) worth of running a minimum of 5km every day.

As a celebration, I took Michelle away for a long weekend to Glasgow to spoil her and to say thank you for all the support she has shown throughout the year.

I decided to do my final run around Glasgow Green and along the River Clyde to the SECC and back to the Hilton Garden Inn (formerly City Inn) where I proposed to Michelle in 2009. The hotel overlooks the Clyde, SECC, STV tv studios and the BBC tv studios. The run was an emotional one as I was about to complete the most difficult challenge I have ever set myself.

The year hasn't just been about the physical challenge, it has been a seriously tough mental challenge as well. I managed to bag a couple of serious injuries. I tore my left hip muscle on day 102 and then did the right hip by over compensating on day 162. I then got an injury to my right heel during one of the two Speed of Light events I did in August. The advice from everybody was to stop running to let my body heel up but I completely ignored them and continued on through the pain and agony. The other tough mental challenge is going out and doing your run regardless of the weather but thankfully we had a mild winter with only a few days of really strong winds to contend with.

During the year I've done 393 runs totalling 2480.69km = 1541 miles = 58.8 marathons = 4.23 miles per day. A lot lot more than minimum of 5k per day :))

I've also done 3 x half marathons, 7 x 10k's, 1 x Kilomathon and 9 x 5k races. Some of those races were even on the same day e.g. BUPA 5k & 10k, 2 x jogScotland 5k's. Not bad for a self confessed 10k runner :)

My plans for the future
I intend to continue on with this challenge until I at least reach day 400 (9th Dec) or to the end of the year but that will be determined by how my legs cope with the half marathon I have on the 2nd Dec. I then intend to take a 2/3 week break and rejoin the challenge for another year but with a different minimum distance.

In 2013, I hope to complete 2 marathons, 1 ultra marathon and a few half marathons and 10k's

In January 2014, I hope to do the Goofy Challenge is Disneyland, Florida. This involves doing the Donald Duck Half Marathon on the Saturday followed by the Mickey Mouse Marathon on the Sunday. If you do both you get the Goofy medal as well :)

And we will see what happens after that.......

The details of day 365 can be found at Day 365/365 challenge

A picture of my final few (knackered) steps of this round of the challenge

The celebratory drink :)