MILLY VOICE

To be honest, with life being busy, I kind of left the blog a bit. I have been unsure what to do with it and as a result, not caught up.

So here it is, a slightly spruced up blog, and a summary of stuff. I am still spending a fair bit of time in the Alps, freelancing for EpicTV and getting to travel a bit to add to the mix. It's been busy! Over the last couple of months I've managed to run on mountain trails, alongside the sea in the UK, and even facing the Eiffel Tower. The adventure side of it all has been great.

While running is progressing better now, it wasn't feeling so smooth towards the end of 2016..

Rewind to last summer. I trained. Hard and frequently. It’s not hard when the view is good, the evenings are long and the trails are so inviting. You could get back from work, be out for an hour or two, and still have glorious sunsets to look at. I entered the Tour du Môle, a particularly feisty 3000m (total elevation) race, got a pleasing result and trained for the next. I felt fit, I felt I could take on whatever the trail threw at me, and things felt good. This was my time, and I was on it.

A slight pain in my foot did not worry me too much. I had figured out by now that stiffness, twinges and aches come with the program. I had experienced injury before, so it didn’t feel a big deal. I largely ignored it, and thought about the next race which I took part in, in August.

This isn’t a post about injury, nor about how uncool I was dealing with it. In some ways I don’t have regrets because I hope I have learned from it, but in other ways, I wished I had listened to my body. My stubbornness is both the reason I have progressed as a runner, and the thing that has held me back. My frustration with injury delayed my recovery.

So, what's different for 2017? I think my attitude to running is becoming a little more philosophical. Maybe. Certainly getting more comfortable in my own skin and understanding what the trail means. Realising my faults with it, embracing them, and hopefully, learning from them. At least, a little bit.

There will always be a big part of me that just gets out there without thinking. But it's part of the charm of it all. I run because I just want to get out there and feel free.

At the moment, I am feeling pretty proud of my friends. The girl who got me into this running jamboree, Nikki, has joined forces with another great gal, Sam, to create 'The Adventure Running Company', and I could not be more thrilled for them. These women, motivate me to crack on with running, because they live and breathe it. We have been on some cool adventures together ,and now they are making it possible for so many others to get on the trail too. Check them out here.

There's the round up, sorry it was so long in the making. Watch out for upcoming posts including my recent film shoot with Salomon. Enjoy your weekend, get outside if you can, plan ahead if not.

Summer is not far away...

Oh, and what's with the title? Well it happens to be April Fools today. If injury has taught me anything, it's that I need to be a bit smarter with it. But I will always be a fool for that trail...