‘In the Long Run’ by Rob Burn

This book was gifted to me by a lovely man in Ireland.

Beginning in early 1981, it follows one man’s experiences of training for, and running, the 1981 New York Marathon.

It is a fascinating, and funny, story of what it takes to get to the start line, and complete a marathon. With the added complication of a BBC film crew creating a short film.

This book was published over 40 years ago, in those days 16,000 ran the New York Marathon, in 2022 just short of 50,000 completed it. The world of running has come along way since Rob Burn brought us his story.

No idea if the BBC film ever made it to public viewing. More research required.

Halfway.

The attempt do a different activity is still going.

Today: plogging.

Plogging is a combination of jogging with picking up litter, merging the Swedish verbs plocka upp (pick up) and jogga (jog) gives the new Swedish verb plogga, from which the word plogging derives.

So it was a loop of the village picking up litter on the way. I wasn’t expecting to pick up much litter; the village doesn’t have a litter issue.

So it was actually quite surprising how much litter I found. Cans, McDonalds boxes, cardboard coffee cups, fag packets, crisp bags, bits of plastic, and various other bits of rubbish.

It was a 4 mile run, very gentle, lots of stopping, complete success.

So having done 15 days I am happy to report I have indeed completed 15 different activities:

• Day 1 – run – 3 miles
• Day 2 – coastal walk – 7 miles
• Day 3 – Holkham Parkrun
• Day 4 – bike ride – 5 miles
• Day 5 – school track run – 3 miles
• Day 6 – treadmill run – 3 miles
• Day 7 – park exercise machines
• Day 8 – garden weights session – 30mins
• Day 9 – exercise bike – 30mins
• Day 10 – Gorleston Cliffs Parkrun
• Day 11 – garden circuits – 30mins
• Day 12 – a fast mile – 6.35
• Day 13 – arms and ads video workout – 30mins
• Day 14 – early morning run – 3 miles
• Day 15 – plogging – 4 miles