I first started running in 1983, when at 38 I realised that I was pretty unfit. I've nearly always trained alone. I did my first proper race in 1985 - a 10K. I've done a couple of Half-M's, and then the Dublin Marathon at age 50. Since then I've done very little regular running. At the end of 2007 I started running again on a small scale just before I became semi-retired. I'm now 71 - which sounds very old!
On 7th October 2010 I achieved 2 targets (PTL) - sub 24 minute 5k and a WAVA over 70%; in fact I did the 5k in 23:26 and got WAVA score 70.93%.

Update January 2013 - Since June 2011 I had a problem in left leg with acute pain at times; it was finally diagnosed as Spinal Stenosis, and after about 21 months of pain, Amitriptyline has made me virtually pain-free. I hope to achieve a 70% WAVA again, but it will take a long time to get back to where I was, as the Spinal Stenosis seemed to retard my pace considerably.
Update September 2016. I have got back a little of my former running fitness. On April 30th I recorded my best parkrun to date, 26:08 - WAVA score of 67.44%, which is the best WAVA for 5 or 6 years. This has been in part due to track sessions with Run4All at Neath.

I first took up running about 1983. I'm now well into my seventies! My aim is to keep running for as many more years as possible, in order to stay relatively fit. I would also like to get back to 70% in the 5K, which I reached in October 2010.

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