February 2010

You'll never hear a true marathon runner complaining about the weather. Well, you will but they'll still be out running in whatever the UK's current allocation of atmospheric imbalances happen to be. Take the first two weeks of January for example, when the entire country was covered in snow. Training didn't stop. Admittedly it was affected; the parkrun was cancelled for the first time ever and then I had to do a 15 mile run on the treadmill.

 

It must have been bad in the park for the parkrun organisers to have called it off but I went to check it out anyway to see if it would be possible to run in there. It looked totally different and slightly eerie, all covered in snow with dark clouds overhead, I wasn't sure where I was at times. Believe it or not there were actually a few runners out and I asked one how he was finding it. Not too bad, he said, but very cold. Ok, right! I was still in two minds whether or not to run on the snow until I saw the next two runners go past, slipping around all over the place. The treadmill it would be then.

The longest I've ever run on the 'dread'mill is two hours I think and that was ages ago. I set myself the target of two and a half for this session. And...I almost made it, losing the mental battle after 2hrs16mins. It's easy to think now that after all that time slogging away, surely I could have held out for another 14 minutes??? But I was seriously knackered after that. Sitting in the changing rooms afterwards, trying to muster up the energy to get in the shower, I knew I couldn't have gone any further that day.

Since then though, things have been much better. I realised I needed to take my diet a bit more seriously, I don't want to go as far as I did last year with the things I gave up but it still had to improve if I was going to have the energy to run 16-24 miles every weekend. So, time to get back on the brown rice which makes a big difference to my energy levels. That last couple of long runs have gone pretty well - earlier today I covered 19 miles and don't feel anywhere near as bad as I did after 15 miles 3 weeks ago.

My mileometer has got off to a great start. During January, I racked up 120 miles - 32 in the last week alone. The intensity of my training will vary throughout the year but if that turns out to be an average month I'll make my 1400 target.....no bother at all  :0)

News archive (click on the month to read or hide the news)

January 2010

December 2009

November 2009

October 2009