Is there a new trend to run on Christmas Day?

Christmas has been and gone, and for me the big dilemma was ‘to run or not to run’.

Was it just me, or were there a lot more people were out and about running over Yuletide?

A running buddy of mine swears by her Christmas Day run, loving the quiet of being out on December 25 when no-one else is about. I joined her one year and know exactly what she means.

But it seems like more people are getting in on the act.

Apparently, there were 600 or so who turned up at Norwich Parkrun at Eaton Park alone for a Christmas Day parkrun.

A snap survey on the Runnorfolk Facebook group suggested that many who were planning to get out on December 25 were looking to grab a little break from the stresses of the day – escaping the family, that sort of thing.

Were you among them?

Even Sophie Raworth from the BBC News was out running that day too, and tweeting about it – her 100th parkrun in fact. You can read more about it here

sophie-raworth-parkrun

Is this a new thing? I’ve always thought of New Year’s Day as being the one for getting out to run off the Christmas pud, and mince pies – at say the Wymondham New Year’s Day 10k (a nice event, btw if you are ever thinking of doing it).

One person I know who was running right up to December 25 was Damo Steward – who’d set himself a 12 runs for Christmas challenge.

This was usually a lunchtime run where he works, near Sinclair International as well as some running around his home at Colton, a couple of miles outside of Norwich.

Damo, 44, started running a couple of years ago when a work health check flagged up high blood pressure, and since then he has done Run Norwich and the Great East Run

So why was he doing it?

“I did the Wissey half marathon at Oxborough Hall at the start of September,” he said. “I thought that would be the last run of the year now that the Norwich Half has been moved to April. I’m doing the Broadland Half in March, but if you don’t go running for too long you can get out of the habit. It’s not too inspiring when the nights draw in and the weather is horrible.

“It started off as 12 days of exercise and I thought I would run in my lunch break because where I live in Colton it can be a bit treacherous at night.”

Well done to him, and to all those who made it out over Christmas.

In the end though, I never got round to running over Christmas, opting decided to take a bit of a seasonal break.

But that’s Christmas out of the way – what about this year?

It’s time to set some goals for 2017…