Not long now....

Well, two weeks tomorrow I'll be looking as I am here. Wearing this nice pink PDS vest, what a fine figure of a man........ hmmmm. It's a good job I'm comfortable with my sexuality.... 'Ducky'.

Anyway, at this time I'll be past half way round - or should be anyway - so please look out for me on the TV (this is my number) and give me a shout if you see me. I'm getting quite worried but when I think about it the adrenalin starts pumping and it turns into a veiled excitement!

I was in quite a bad way after Monday's run and, because I'd slipped the long run from Sunday, it threw my programme out a bit, consequently I missed out the slow recovery run I should have done this week and just did the 'quality' training sessions - which I managed OK. My feet are still hurting and I think I may well use my old trainers for the long runs and new ones (that have now - since my wading sessions a couple of weeks ago - become uncomfortable) for short sessions.

It's taper time now, so the sessions this week have been a bit easier.... at last! I've attached a chart I've been keeping of weekly and cumulative mileage since I started training. These are taken from my GPS and go from Sunday to Saturday whereas my programme works from Monday to Sunday so it's a little bit out of kilter on a weekly basis but the cumulative is spot on! It's easy to see when we were on holiday just after Christmas - oops!

Oh, that hurt......

I did my longest training run today, 23 miles, and I'm suffering. Here's the map player if you want to see me waddling around... just press 'Play' on the left side of the page. As a bit of an aside, you'll notice I climbed more than 3,600 feet during the course of the run - who said Northamptonshire is flat?!

My feet are killing me, my arches really ached and I've got a black toenail starting on my right foot. I'm not sure if I didn't tighten my laces enough or if the shoes are damaged from last week's soaking but they've never been this uncomfortable before.

I was going to do this run yesterday but it was snowing heavily when I rose and the forecast said the wind would get stronger and snow continue during the morning, whereas today's forecast was for it to be overcast but dry and with reasonable winds, hey, back to bed then!

It's going to take me about 4 1/2 hours to complete this run and if I start too late it's the day gone, so the alarm went off at 06:30...... and it was snowing........ and the forecast has been updated to say it will do so for most of the morning but I can't put it off again so I put a pair of tracksuit bottoms on as well as two shirts, cap, coat and gloves. I've only run in trackies once before and didn't enjoy it, they're a bit on the heavy side and rub as I run but it really does look cold out there.

I did 14 miles and came home to collect Birg for the final 9, my feet were already hurting and I was struggling. It was all I could do to complete the run and in fact, after mile 20, I had to walk briefly on about 4-5 occasions, the problem was that I didn't feel any better when I did, it wasn't lack of energy it was discomfort that I was seeking respite from.

First thing when I got home was a hot bath, then when I was feeling a bit better, Birg went shopping and came back with a box of Radox........ time to soak my feet........ bliss.

At least I've done 23 miles and am now tapering down over the next three weeks. I'm pleased I didn't just do 20 miles as I'm now confident I can do an extra 3 miles on the day whereas if I had only done 20, I'd have had to pull an extra 6 miles out of the bag....... which I'm sure would have been a big ask.

It's Thursday after the Sunday before...

... and I'm quite pleased the way this week's training has gone.

I've completed three training runs since the 20 miler on Sunday and have managed to keep to the times specified in the programme for all of them. For example, today was a 1 mile warm up, 4 miles brisk, 1 mile cool down. The important section, the 4 miles brisk, should (in my case) be run at a pace between 9 minutes 44 seconds and 10 minutes 04 per mile and I averaged 9:56 for each mile - almost exactly in the middle, i.e. spot on.

This coming Sunday is the longest training run I'll be doing before the Marathon. The idea is that you 'taper' for the final three weeks, reducing rather than increasing the mileage so the muscles have a chance to rest and recouperate before the event. According to the programme, last Sunday's run should have only been 18 miles and this coming one should be 20 but I was a bit concerned that if the longest run I did was 20, I'd have to find an extra 6 miles in the tank on the day so I modified the programme and did 20 last week and am doing 23 this. That way I only need to do an extra 3 miles on race day, it just feels more manageable.

As an aside, I'm sitting here writing this and the phrase 'I only need to do an extra 3 miles on race day' jumped out of the page at me. It's not that long since I would have been puffing and panting if I walked 3 miles never mind ran it........ on top of running 23 miles! Actually, I'm fairly certain I'll be staggering it but hey ho!

20 miles today - in the wind and rain!

It was 20 miles today, the longest session I've ever done, and I'm walking like a Wooden Top.

You can see the route I took if you click here .

I did 11.5 miles on my own then Birg joined me for the last 8.5. It was very windy the whole time but thankfully it only rained for the first hour or so. However, there'd been torrential rain throughout the night and I ended up paddling through flood water on at least five occasions. Once, the water was flowing so hard I feared for my safety, a car refused to go through it, instead turning around to find an alternative route - I had to negotiate it or go back the way I'd come and do an extra 5 miles, so I lifted my knees and went for it, the water came half way up my shins. The worst thing was that I was wearing my new trainers - that will be them ruined then.

I was so impressed with myself that when we'd finished the run I got Birg to drive me back there and take a photo, here it is (bear in mind I'd been through it 3 hours earlier so it had subsided considerably)




When we were there I thought it would be good to give a practical demonstration of what it had been like. I was still wet and cold so it wasn't much of a hardship to run through again with Birg videoing me (a passing horse rider thought it a bit odd mind!) anyway here we are:

I know I haven't updated this since last Sunday which is a bit remiss of me. There were lots of photos of me at the Silverstone Half Marathon last week (possibly because the phtographers thought I may collapse?) and I've ordered some but it will take about 2 weeks to receive them. If you can't contain yourself and feel you must see me wobbling like a Weeble over the finish line then click on this link , you need to click on the 'My photo's' tab. Birg is here and looks a lot healthier than me at the finish - she obviously didn't try hard enough!

Well, that's the first Half done.........

2 hours 16 minutes and 33 seconds....... that was my official time in the Silverstone Half Marathon today, Birg did 2:15:59, she beat me by 34 seconds!!!

Here I am, looking all relaxed before the start - Ha, Fool! Wait until I get a photo of me afterwards (I'm hoping I was snapped by an official photographer but won't know until Wedensday when they're published)

It was very hard work but I was pleased with the result. The best pace I'd managed prior to this was a 10 mile training run two weeks ago when I maintained a 10:27 minutes per mile pace for the 10 miles - and felt I was going to die when I'd finished (runners tend to talk about pace instead of speed, measuring their performance by how many minutes and seconds it takes to run a mile). When you take into consideration I actually ran 13.37 miles rather than the official 13.1 of a half marathon (due to going around obstacles - yes, I overtook some people, not many but some!!) I managed to keep to a pace of 10:14 per mile for a greater distance - I'm very pleased..... and shattered.

I wore my GPS and set it to beep at me when my pace went faster than 10:00/mile or slower than 10:30/mile, I'd have been happy with any result faster than an average of 10:30 but was trying to keep it as close as possible to 10:00. The route used all the different circuits that make up Silverstone (including the perimeter track) with the final 3 miles being back on the main F1 circuit. When we got back on the F1 track for the final time I was doing 10:12 and - thinking I'd be able to keep it going for the last 3 miles - dug in and sped up to try and get my pace down to 10:00 mins/mile, unfortunately I was wrong! After about a mile I felt terrible, it was only when my GPS said I had completed the official 13.1 miles that I got a second (third? fourth?) wind and went for it for the last quarter of a mile, I did stagger over the finish line though.

There were actually 4900 starters, 4809 finished, Birg came in at position 3,769 overall, 66 in her group of 122 * 45-49 year old women and I was 3,806 overall (122 out of 152 * 50-54 year old men). I can't wait to see the photos from the event but, as Birg takes great pleasure in reminding me, in a month's time I'll be doing it again - doubled....... hmmm.

If you follow this link it will show you the route we took along with various snippets of information such as my speed and heart rate etc. (if you're really interested!) but also, if you click on the 'Player' tab (top right) it plays back my run with a little dot representing me going round the circuit (well, once more, I think it's good fun!).

Here it is:
http://trail.motionbased.com/trail/invitation/dashboard.mb?episodePk.pkValue=5129000

For what it's worth, if you do click on 'Heart Rate' on the left side of the page the above link takes you to, you will see I was in zone 5 (90-100% of Max Heart Rate) for 43% of the time and zone 4 (80-89% HR Max) for a further 43% of the time, i.e. I was working blooming hard!!

Number 38701.......

I just received my registration details today........ I'm number 38701!

Apparently there are about 54,000 people taking part in total so it's going to be pretty cosy! I've watched the marathon on the TV before and been shocked by how many runners take part but I didn't realise there are three different start points, just to cater for all the participants, I'm in the red zone which starts in Greenwich Park.

Birg and I are both a bit nervous as we're in our first proper race tomorrow: we're registered for the Silverstone Half Marathon - numbers 339 and 340 - which, surprisingly, has about 5,000 entrants, it's amazing that there are so many people taking part in these things.

We'll hopefully get some photos out of that, right now I'm off to bed to get a decent night's rest!!

We're getting there, slowly but slowly....

Oh boy, lots of things have happened since my last post, I've bought another pair of shoes (as the pair I bought in September are wearing out!) and poor old Birg has injured her leg... this week I ran a total of 39.5 miles which took me 8hours 25 minutes..... yesterday I ran 17.5 miles and could hardly lift my feet by the end..... yes, a lot's happened since my last post (Birg's OK now by the way, following nightly hot water bottle treatment)

I've changed from the Flora London Marathon training programme I was following to one from the Runner's World magazine, the beauty of this one is that it can be downloaded to my GPS so it beeps at you if you're going too fast or too slow and when you've finished each step and need to move up a pace or relax a bit, for example last Tuesday I had to do the following set and the GPS kept me on track with various (annoying actually) beeps:

1 mile warm up at a pace between 11:40 and 12:00 minutes per mile
1.5 miles fast (a pace between 9:08 and 9:28 minutes per mile) - made it just
0.25 miles recovery (a pace slower than 12:00 minutes per mile) - walked!
1.5 miles fast - did a bit better 9:26 pace
0.25 miles recovery - walked
1.5 miles fast - did even better 9:23 pace!
0.25 miles recovery - staggered!
1 mile cool down at a pace between 11:40 and 12:00 minutes per mile.

Birg had a day off and was at home when I finished, I staggered into the house and couldn't speak, I collapsed in a chair and sat there steaming, I wasn't angry, I was steaming.

Oh, I've been losing weight again with all this training, I'm back down to 86Kg

I just booked our hotel for the Saturday night before the Marathon. I've been looking since early January but all London hotels were fully booked for that Saturday night..... with hindsight, there's going to be 40,000 people descending on London to run the Marathon, they're going to want to sleep somewhere, I should have booked somthing before I'd got the marathon place, I could have always cancelled it. Anyway, I was looking again this evening when I had a bright idea, rather than looking towards central London, look outwards into Kent. Hey presto, Dartford has a Holiday Inn Express 1.5Km from the station, which in turn is a 32 minute ride from Greenwich, the start point. This is ideal as we can just drive round the M25 on Saturday morning, go looking around BlueWater shopping centre in the afternoon and then walk to the station in the morning. The only minor problem is that they only have double rooms, twin rooms and six man rooms - OK, so we'll have a few spare beds then!