CBA

7 miles. Should have been 13. Got cold and bored.

Compromise

I've got myself tangled up here.
I'm in London Tues and Weds next week, the days of my long run. And the kids are with me this weekend.

I'm supposed to have done 4 miles yesterday and 6 tomorrow. So instead I got up early, while Rona and Paddy were able to provide babysitting cover, and ran 5.

5.2 miles at 9.11 a mile.

I found myself at Morrisons at 8.02am, buying dog biscuits.

Now there's a first.

Running Into The Dark

12 miles tonight.

First time that I've run with Thom Bunting. He's the guy whose idea this was in the first place.
Great. Like sitting in the pub chatting.

And when I told my mum I was doing this marathon, her line was
"Why are you doing that?"

22nd September

This evening I ran 4.01 and then did a bit more.

This was to make up for last night when I was supposed to run 6 and I ran 5.8.

5 miles

So much for writing about stuff other than training.

Out to The George in the autumn sunshine. 5 miles

Tuesday

First say to yourself what you would be;
and then do what you have to do.

Epictetus

I don't want this blog simply to be a dry account of pratice runs completed. I was standing in Waterstones looking at a triathlon book. Next to it was a training diary with a number of quotes in it. This one really sprang to my eye. I'm writing this before I head out for this week's long run - 11miles due. Now, once upon a time, six months ago, that was a huge distance. It still is. But it was also far beyond my ken. The first time that I ran 11 miles was the Bath Half marathon. Somehow, it doesn't seem quite as daunting as it once did. There's another quote, a Japanese proverb that I grabbed out of this morning's Times newspaper - "Giving birth to a baby is easier than worrying about it." I'm not going to pass judgement on whether giving birth is easy or not (from first hand experience, I'd say that it isn't.) But I think I get the point of this.

(Update)
Back in.

11 miles done. Slow tonight, 10mins 20 per mile average. REALLY hurt.

4 miles plus, avg 9 min miles

I left the house just after the headlines about the collapse of Lehman Brothers on the evening news. Within minutes of starting, the story seemed so far away.

I still struggle with the beginning of each run. The first mile or so always feels like impossibly hard work and I wonder whether I can continue or not. Then the rythmn appears and I can keep going.

I reckon that there is a base level of fitness that people start to acquire when they want to get fit. Above that, there is a really high degree of almost superhuman fitness that is a mixture of genetics and way above average commitment (remember the morning at Bath University pool where I spotted the size 14 green flip flops that had been left by the side of the pool by someone who'd been training since 6am).
And in between those two points, it's all down to the mind.

Walk Of Shame

Out the door at 7.45 this morning, ran 5 miles. Just me and a whole bunch of people going home after a Saturday night out.

I'm running 9 min miles at the moment.

I Had That Tiger Woods...

In my ear yesterday afternoon. He said to me "Congratulations. You've just done your fastest ever mile."

And I managed to fall off my bike. 

And today I walked into town to buy Jamie's new football boots. On the way I saw Rachel and mark with her children from another life following on behind, their mum and new dad arm in arm in grim silence. 

And the photo that I took of the two girls in Allsport. 

9/11

I wrote a long post earlier today. I've deleted it to replace it with this.

I found myself standing in the queue in Greggs waiting to buy a pasty and a sausage roll. When it dawned on me that, seven years ago to the day, I returned from buying a sandwich in Goodge St to the offices of the Travel Channel. And saw the plane fly in to the second World Trade Center tower.

A lot's changed since then. Both in the world and in my life.

Back On Track

Two runs today. 

The main one, 10 miles, 9min miles all the way round. 

And earlier I couldnt' wait to get out of bed. So I did the three that I was supposed to have done last Friday.

Why Are You Doing This?

Before the Bath tri, Margo asked me one evening "Why are you doing all of this?"

That's a slightly difficult question to answer. But it's part of the feedback that I've received a great deal.

After I'd finished one long run, I had a shower and then went to the pub to meet some people. When I arrived, the first thing that happened was the people asked me if I'd just been for a run. The feedback was pretty unanimous. "utter madness" said one. "So how far can you run now?" said another with a sick look on her face. "How fast are the Africans at running the whole thing?" said a third in a "well you're not very good, are you?" sort of way.

This kind of reaction is no different from that that I've had from pretty much every quarter this year. The only person who has consistently and genuinely seemed happy at what I'm doing is my pal Paul Beddoe.

And to lots of other people's reaction, I'm tempted to say "What's it like being unfit?" but that might hurt people's feelings, mightn't it?

Awesome

That was the description use by the guy standing next to me. And he was right.

I spent yesterday afternoon at Sherborne, watching a chunk of Ironman UK. 2.4mile swim, then 112mile bike ride. Topped off with a full marathon. And nearly 1200 people finished it within the 17 hours from the 6 o’clock in the morning swim to the cutoff point.



Anyone uninspired or unmoved by just how long people keep going and their effort on the day and the knowledge of how much training must have gone in just to get people there has got a hole where their heart should be. And they’d have also missed the humour of it – like the guy who arrived at a feeding station and asked if there was any cheese on toast to be had.


By the time I took this photo, the competitors are running by floodlight. And that’s not the odd straggler. Of the 1196 that finished, nearly 500 people finished in more than 13hrs 30. In other words in the dark.

A number of people have asked me if I went along because I was planning to attempt it. Well, when I once asked my great friend John Tomnay whether he’d ever do anything longer than an Olympic distance, he said “No…I like to be able to hold my beer steady at the end!” I reckon that, not only would I be unable to hold my beer steady. I’d be unable to see it.

Back On The Air

One of my September resolutions was to keep to the training schedule. Another was to write about it every day. 

So much for both of them. Weds I was supposed to run 8 miles. And...well, I drank too much the night before with a friend of mine who came round for supper and really didn't feel like it. Thursday, Jamie and Eleanor were with me so that precludes any training. And Friday it rained so much that I had no appetite whatsoever to get out on the road. 

So that brought me to Saturday already two runs behind at the end of the first week of my training. 

I filled in a lot of the deficit with 8 and a half miles yesterday. And I'm just back in from another five this morning along the canal towpath past the George pub (which I've now measured at exactly two miles from my front door). 

So that puts me three miles behind where I'm supposed to be at this point. 

End Of Week 4

Here's the table of training runs for the plan to which I'm working.
What that means is that I'm going to do my long run on a Weds.

Working it out, that means that I'm running on Monday, Wednesdays, Fridays and Sundays.

So no run today but 8 miles tomorrow.

I can't wait.

Three Months And Counting

Three months to go before I'm on the start line in Florence. In the last couple of weeks before the Bath tri, I was conscious of not having trained enough. I'm not going to feel like that again.

There's a start of term sort of feel to the day. For me, this morning was the first time that I've stuck to the schedule outlined in the book. Out of the door this morning at 7.30am, out along the canal towpath to the stone bridge and then back again. So I reckon that that's about four miles - more than I'm supposed to have done according to the training program.

For me, today feels like a fresh start, a bit like New Year's Day is supposed to feel. So in that spirit, here are some resolutions that I'm going to stick to during the next three months

1. Only buy stuff of a shopping list
2. Only supermarket shop once a week
3. Never take the kids to a supermarket
4. Make a list of expenditure

During the course of the day, I've already been to Morrisons twice. So that's one resolution down within the first 24hours....