Snow running...

I woke up yesterday morning at 6.15am, looked out of the window and what did I see... a thin covering of snow. Bum. I thought to myself perhaps this will clear by 7.30am when I go out for my long run. No such luck.

However as luck would have it Helen who runs ahead of me worked out as my ice warning system. She ran ahead, slipped and slided and then stopped to warn me where she had slid so I didn't mirror her! Genius. Every runner should have one!

Anyway having had a chest infection for the past week, I only had a 3 mile run on Tuesday last week and a few days on the bike and cross trainer at the gym. Antibiotics having now kicked in, it was definitely time to attempt the half marathon distance and try and get this training properly under way as I feel it's been a bit stop-start so far.

I mapped out my run 13.06 miles and at 7.30am me and Hels set off - in the snow.

There was a lovely sunrise yesterday, it felt really good being up and out so early in the crisp cold with the sun coming up. The run took us through Little Wymondley, Gravely, Baldock, Letchworth and Hitchin.

Up until about mile 7 I was feeling good, hadn't even had the usual difficult first 2 miles but around mile 8 the joints were starting to feel it, my knee was niggling and I was feeling the cold. Between Baldock and Letchworth is a small incline and that was where I hit my wall, my legs felt frozen and I felt like even though I was running I was going backwards. I kept on going though with my run now looking way more like the shuffle I thought it would! I shuffled onwards at a snails pace, I couldn't even get my legs to move a bit quicker when I knew there was only a few hundred yards to go!

Finally we finished. 2hrs and 25mins later. What's more according to Helen's gadget we had run 14.1 miles and her gadget is usually spot on! So we ran either 13 or 14 miles, I struggled and my knee is definitely proving to be an issue, I am starting to ask myself what have I got myself into, but hopefully the long runs will get easier if I keep putting the effort in.

Today my legs are a little achy, but my shoulders are aching worse and that was from carrying shopping bags yesterday afternoon!!! Well there has to be some reward for running half a marathon right?

I had the weekend off... and feel very guilty!

Weird huh! My very good excuse for not running the planned 12 miles this weekend was the fact that I'm full of cold and still have a horrible cough. I went out when feeling extremely rough on Thursday night and managed the 5 miles (at a fairly good pace for me too), but when I got in, I coughed all night and did not sleep.

Common sense told me not to push it this weekend as I could wreck my immune system altogether or indeed if the cough is on my chest then apparently I could actually die attempting a 12 mile run, which isn't ideal.

So I took the weekend off but the guilt! I feel so guilty and cannot wait to get out training this week to try and make up for it. Still coughing though and nose is still either streaming or bunged up. Have decided to go to the doctor for him to tell me what is sensible, but feel like a fraud, it's a cough for Pete's sake, nothing serious. Better to be safe though and if there's any way to shift this cough quicker than letting it disappear naturally then I'm willing to try it, I have got 13 miles to complete next Saturday!

Week two of training begins...

...and it damn near killed me tonight. Ok killed me may be a very slight exaggeration but I nearly fainted and that's almost dying isn't it?

The idea of the Tuesday runs is to take 15% off of my marathon mile time so I run faster than normal but in short distances to get used to running a faster pace and therefore run faster on the day. So today was only 4 x 1200m circuits.

You know that feeling you get when you feel dizzy and you're not sure whether you want to be sick or use the toilet (too much information?) well anyway yeah that was circuit 3 out of 4. How embarrassing.

Now I could have been down to the fit bloke that we had just run past (I would kind of rather it was to be honest) but no, it's because it turns out I had wrongly calculated how fast I should have been running and therefore I was running an 8 minute mile pace. I should have been aiming for around a 10 minute mile pace. I can tell you now that there is absolutely no chance that I could run any 8 minute mile on marathon day let alone have an average pace of 8 minutes per mile! The start line would still be within sight if I tried that believe me!

Anyway long story short, I nearly fainted, I have pulled a calf muscle, I can't stop coughing but I'm alive. Hurrah! Just hope the calf sorts itself out for the 5 mile run on Thursday night!

First 10 miler of 2010...

... and my God I struggled! I limped home after 1 hour 53mins. I had to stop and walk about 5 or 6 times throughout the run but at least I got out there and did it, was kind of dreading it as it's been about 5 or 6 weeks since I did my last 10 miles.

Luckily I had Helen on hand to run with. She's not even running the marathon but is happy to train with me (nutter)! I think we had a moment at about 7 or 8 miles in when we both had a sudden burst of energy and good humour and decided to belt out whatever it was we were listening to on our ipods. Mine was (Your love keeps lifting me) Higher & Higher by Jackie Wilson, Hels has promised to sing this to me from the sidelines when she comes to watch me in April. A definite pick-me-up.

The best bit about this morning's run was definitely the rain though. I really would love it to be raining on marathon day. I realise that this makes it fairly rubbish for supporters, but it makes running so much more bearable, keeping you cool. For all my friends that ran the Edinburgh marathon last year in 28 degrees sunshine, I have no idea how they finished. Actually I have no idea how they finished anyway, but in that heat! Wow.

So I'll be keeping my fingers crossed for more rain next weekend when I tackle 12 miles. If it could clear up and the sun start shining at about 11am though that would be good, who do I need to ask to make this possible?

Getting Started

And so... here it begins. I promised my work colleagues that I would keep a blog of my marathon training for them, I promised on my fundraising page that all who donate could follow a blog tracking my progress and I promised myself that keeping a blog may actually aid me in completing a marathon (yes that's right a marathon - 26.2 miles), so here I am writing a blog.

Now, not being the best of writers and all, I'm not entirely sure that this is going to be the most interesting of reads, but hey I'm actually up for anything that might help me mentally prepare for the hard slog to come.

Trying to think of what sort of shape this blog should take, I contemplated turning it into a Bridget Jones style training diary, keeping a count of how far I have run each week, how much I have had to eat each day, how many drinks have been consumed etc... but in all honesty, I'm thinking I've never done so much exercise in my life, so frankly why care about what I'm eating! In fact for the first time in my life I'm eating carbs not just because all my favourite foods are massively carb-tastic and beige in colour, but because my body NEEDS them. So therefore maybe this blog will have no sort of shape to it whatsoever, and I'll just empty my head of all my running trials and tribulations over the next few months onto here as a form of therapy. Now where did I put that cake?

I started this week in a mild state of panic, already one week behind schedule. With 'The Big Freeze' having had an all consuming affect on the UK for the past 10 days or so, I have struggled to get out and start running. My poor colleagues in the Events team, who are organising all the runners for The Children's Society had to give me a ten minute counselling session to ensure me all was not lost before it had even started!

On Tuesday evening, (feeling a bit more confident thanks to my colleagues) the snow had melted enough for me to run a few km's (trying hard not to fall over and break anything before I'd even started). I was supposed to be running 8 x 400 metre runs (not jogs) concentrating on speed. Unfortunately, the field around which I was going to do these runs was still a blanket of snow and frozen mud so I opted to jog/run the same distance around the streets instead. The first day of training and already I've deviated from the plan. The signs aren't good.

Then upon waking on Wednesday morning, I look outside my window and once again the streets of Hitchin are a blanket of white snow. Oh hell! The words 'square' and 'one' sprang to mind. But I was resolute, that the poxy snow was not going to beat me. Transport may well fall apart in this weather but my body certainly was not going to follow suit.

Thursday night I completed a 3 mile run as per the training plan. Although I did this on the treadmill, as icy streets were still a problem. I can't make a habit of the treadmill thing though as a) I run funny on them and seem to pick up aches and pains after 15mins and b) My god the treadmill is boring. At least it was only a short run.

So still a week behind schedule but I've made a start. The training plan I have chosen is a '3 runs a week plan', as I think anything more will ensure I get shin splints or ruin my knees, both problems I have suffered from in the past. I plan to run 10 miles tomorrow morning (in the rain) hoping to pick up my pre-Christmas fitness really quickly to move onto week two of training. What have I got myself into? And more seriously where have I put that cake?