I\'ve completed a fair number of the 5km races at the Richmond parkrun but, again, not as regularly. My average time has increased by over a minute but that doesn\'t bother me. One of my initial aims is to start running them a bit more often and hopefully knock the seconds back off.
Last week was my first major race since London, the Windsor Half Marathon. I wasn\'t going for a time, just wanted to enjoy the run but even though I was taking it easy it was a tough one\; the hilliest course I\'ve ever done, on another unseasonably warm day. My performance there certainly gave me something to think about. This weekend I\'m doing RunKingston, a 16 mile run along the Thames which I\'ve done before it\'s flat and scenic so I\'m hoping to do a bit better but it\'s mainly just to get a feel for my fitness before serious training begins.
"; } else { document.getElementById("news_oct").innerHTML=""; document.getElementById("news_oct").style.border="1px solid white"; document.getElementById("loct").style.color = "#000000"; } } //November 2009 function setNovText() { if (document.getElementById("news_nov").innerHTML==""){ document.getElementById("lnov").style.color = "#FA6601"; document.getElementById("news_nov").innerHTML="I was getting a little bored with running and running all the time and I won\'t start on a proper marathon training plan until January, so Mandy decided to show me an unorthodox training method.I was exhausted after that. You can tell me what you think of my moves on the Message Board but remember...I\'m a runner, not a dancer.
RunKingston, a few weekends ago, went very well. 16 miles was the furthest I\'d run since the marathon and I was pleased to realise I had the stamina to keep up the same steady pace all the way through. I didn\'t set myself a time target, that\'s something I want to try and get away from, but I was very close to when I ran the same course in April. That tells me I\'ve still got the fitness I had then, more or less, which is very encouraging.
My plan over the next couple of months is to build up even more mileage but without going overboard. I want to see if I can make my body think that a 20 mile run every 2 weeks or so is normal, without burning myself out. It may seem a bit early to be running that far but I think I\'m fit enough to maintain it and I already feel I\'m recovering quicker than I did a few months ago. I think slowing myself down, especially in the first half and letting the speed increase naturally as time goes on, is the key to keeping that up.
We\'ll see anyway. Depending on how that goes will shape the training plan I\'ll start on in January.
"; } else { document.getElementById("news_nov").innerHTML=""; document.getElementById("news_nov").style.border="1px solid white"; document.getElementById("lnov").style.color = "#000000"; } } //December 2009 function setDecText() { if (document.getElementById("news_dec").innerHTML==""){ document.getElementById("ldec").style.color = "#FA6601"; document.getElementById("news_dec").innerHTML="A couple of weeks ago I was presented with my 50 Club parkrun t-shirt. I missed the main week they were given out because I was on holiday and apparently that morning saw terrible weather conditions. The race director started of the announcements by offering congratulations to the people who showed up and jokingly berating the \'fair weather\' runners for staying in bed! Then she said, I\'ve got one last t-shirt to give out for someone who wasn\'t here last week....then called out my name. Cheek! Made me sound like I was scared of a bit of rain! Not true, I\'ve certainly done my fair share of running in the hail, gales and mud.I hope you\'ve noticed that I\'ve made a few improvements and additions to the site, just before things start to get serious after Christmas. I\'ve added a mileometer page to keep track of how many miles I\'ll end up running in 2010, put a few more pictures in the gallery and yes, your eyes are not mistaken, the pages are wider! So I can fit more cool stuff on
Yes, it was a bit cold  | For the people running behind me  | The first 5 miles of 2010.....done!  |
These pictures were taken before and after the very first miles of the year, on New Year\'s Day. The mileometer has started ticking, check out my progress here.
Although I haven\'t been on a structured training plan up until now, I\'ve more than held my own recently I think. Last weekend I ran my fastest parkrun since mid April and I can already comfortably run 16 miles. \'Comfortably\' of course, being a relative term. I\'ve been thinking carefully about how I\'m going to train this time. I don\'t want to take the same approach as I did last year, partly because I didn\'t quite get the result I wanted, partly because it kinda took over my life a little bit and partly because 4 weeks after London I\'ll be running the second marathon and I\'ll need to have some legs left. So here\'s the plan...
I\'m going to try and completely forget about time and pace and just concentrate on putting in the miles. I\'ll only be doing 3 running sessions a week, made up of the long steady run, a recovery run a day or 2 after that, plus one other quality session - either the 5km parkrun or maybe up to 10km on the treadmill, depending how I feel. In addition, I\'ll be doing one cross training session a week, pilates or weights. That means no speed work. No mile reps, no hill repeats, no fartleks. What a shame.
And I want to do more 20+ mile runs than I did last year. Most plans recommend 2-4 runs of 20-22 miles. I\'m planning on doing at least 6, maybe getting up to 24 miles. But I\'ll have to take each week as it comes because it\'ll be very easy to burn myself out so to compensate for the extra miles, I\'m going to slow myself down. Time is secondary. Hopefully, gradually building up to this distance, will mean I\'ll not only have the stamina to run 2 marathons in a month but I'll also be stronger at the end of each race and not end up slowing down so much towards the end as I did last year. So the side affect could be, dare I say it, achieving a better marathon time. Yeah I know I said I wanted to try and ignore time, but \'try\' is the key word there. It still lingers in the back of my mind. The important thing is to learn from last year\'s experience.
"; } else { document.getElementById("news_jan").innerHTML=""; document.getElementById("news_jan").style.border="1px solid white"; document.getElementById("ljan").style.color = "#000000"; } } //February function setFebText() { if (document.getElementById("news_feb").innerHTML==""){ document.getElementById("lfeb").style.color = "#FA6601"; document.getElementById("news_feb").innerHTML="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)
"; } else { document.getElementById("news_feb").innerHTML=""; document.getElementById("news_feb").style.border="1px solid white"; document.getElementById("lfeb").style.color = "#000000"; } } //March function setMarText() { if (document.getElementById("news_mar").innerHTML==""){ document.getElementById("lmar").style.color = "#FA6601"; document.getElementById("news_mar").innerHTML="Those busy people at parkrun have been improving their website. It\'s now possible for me to embed my entire race history from their site into another one...this one for example!! Like this....Now this is cool because it makes it very easy for you to see exactly how I\'m doing in these races which should motivate me to move my arse a bit more while I\'m running them. For example, if you scroll down a little bit and study the times, you\'ll quickly notice that I\'ve only managed to get under 21 minutes on 2 occasions and haven\'t achieved a PB for almost exactly a whole year! That\'s a bit lame. To be fair though, as I\'ve mentioned before, speed is not my main focus; when it does become an important part of my training once again in the summer, I should start getting closer to those highs. And the fact that I\'m telling you this is what should happen, will hopefully make me more likely to actually make it happen.
March is the key month for London Marathon training when everyone will be getting up to their longest run and highest weekly mileage before starting to taper in April. As I\'m fairly experienced (and by that I mean I\'ve been running a long time rather than I always know what I\'m doing) I\'m up to 21 miles for my long steady run and last week I ran a record breaking 38 miles! As long as I don't start to feel too tired, I\'ll be into the 40s for the last few weeks of March which is quite a big step up from last year. I really think these extra miles per week could be the key to not blowing up in the last quarter of a marathon.
And there\'s a few exciting events coming up this month; firstly I\'ll be running the Reading Half Marathon on the 21st for the...hmmmm let me think...at least the 5th time and the following weekend we\'re off to Mandy's hometown where she\'ll be running her first ever race - the Berlin Half Marathon, while I\'ll no doubt be eating the tons of food her mum will be cooking for us. I\'ll let you know how we get on.
"; } else { document.getElementById("news_mar").innerHTML=""; document.getElementById("news_mar").style.border="1px solid white"; document.getElementById("lmar").style.color = "#000000"; } } //April1 Half Marathon adventures function setApr1Text() { if (document.getElementById("news_apr1").innerHTML==""){ document.getElementById("lapr1").style.color = "#FA6601"; document.getElementById("news_apr1").innerHTML="John: It\'s always good to get on the road for a race again so I\'d been looking forward to the Reading Half Marathon for a while. My half marathon PB was set there last year and even though I wasn\'t aiming to beat that, I secretly thought I could get a fairly good time, somewhere around 1hr 45mins maybe. Everything seems to come together when I run Reading; the weather was optimum, the pace was good and I was getting further and further ahead of schedule at every mile post, averaging well under 8 minutes per mile. I was very happy with how it was going. I got a text from Mandy telling me where she was waiting, I knew the spot exactly and wasn\'t far from it so I looked forward to getting there. In fact I almost missed her but luckily she saw me and screamed out her encouragement.
All through the run I was beginning to wonder if I could actually go under 1 hour 40 minutes again. I thought I would probably just miss out but as I started on the last mile, a quick calculation told me that if I pushed for a strong finish, I might just sneak it. But I was a bit knackered, I\'d picked up a slight niggle in my right calf and I decided I\'d be happy enough with whatever I got because it would be much better than expected. That abruptly changed when I entered the stadium, saw the finish line about 200 meters away and realised if I Usain Bolted it I could still get that sub 1:40. You can see by the demented look in my final straight photos that I was at the limit for those last 30 seconds and unbelievably I hit the finish mat in 1:39:58.
My running buddies for the day Neil and Zoltan were waiting just a bit further on. They\'d both made their target time as well; in fact as Zoltan had predicted, we were all faster than we thought we would be. I\'m not sure yet if I\'ll be running any marathons next year but I\'ll certainly be back in Reading where, if I train specifically for the half marathon distance, I think I can make sub 1:35.
 Can I still make sub 1:40....? |  You can if you move NOW! |  Neil, Zoltan and I all achieved our targets. |
Mandy: Reading - the only thing I know about this town is they hold an annual half marathon event. And here I was, Sunday morning 10am. I made my way to the first cheering location between mile 6 and 7 and quickly found the perfect spot. Or so I thought. The streets were still very quiet, no runner in eyeshot yet otherwise I might have realised my so called \'perfect spot\' wasn\'t so perfect after all. Why? Well...have you ever tried to cross a motorway at rush hour?
Okay, I chose my spot, made sure nobody blocked my sight, prepared the camera and waited impatiently for John to pass. Then suddenly he came around the corner, exactly at the time he predicted. I quickly took a picture, screamed after him how proud I was then he was gone already. Now, I had to hurry up to get to my second cheering point. The problem was I needed to get on the other side of the \'motorway\' where the shuttle bus was waiting. After a couple of unsuccessful attempts, I spotted a gap in the runners and ran between and partially with them, whilst yelling my apologies.
On the bus to the finish, I spotted John again, just after mile 10. I was so excited that I decided to try and catch him up between mile 11 and 12. But with very little time, I started my very own half marathon that day. Looking like a pit pony with all the gear and bags, I started to run, gaining supportive cheering from some cheeky pedestrians. Unfortunately I couldn\'t remember the way. The guy I asked obviously didn\'t either because he sent me to no man\'s land. So I decided to head to the stadium where I arrived totally sweaty and exhausted, with the only thought that I had to see John finishing his race. And the moment I sat down, I saw him running into the stadium. It was a perfect timing for both of us - he made it under 1:40 and I made it just in time to see him crossing the finish line.
It was a lovely day - beautiful weather, a cheering crowd and John running even better than expected. There was just one problem; I had ants in my pants! Whilst watching and supporting all the runners I was looking forward to getting to the start in Berlin for my very first half marathon.
"; } else { document.getElementById("news_apr1").innerHTML=""; document.getElementById("news_apr1").style.border="1px solid white"; document.getElementById("lapr1").style.color = "#000000"; } } //April2 Half Marathon adventures function setApr2Text() { if (document.getElementById("news_apr2").innerHTML==""){ document.getElementById("lapr2").style.color = "#FA6601"; document.getElementById("news_apr2").innerHTML="Mandy: Finally, the day had come; Sunday, 28th March 2010. After a week of constant high blood pressure I could not wait any longer. My very first half marathon in my home town was about to start. I was ready. It\'s a very beautiful course - not only because it\'s mainly flat but also because of all the sights and history you see and feel around you. On that day, I was very proud to be part of this city.
After very kind and supportive words from John, I went to my start area. My official aim was to run it in 2:15hrs, but unofficially I was hoping to stay under 2hrs. I didn\'t have a racing strategy but I followed everyone\'s advice and started off slowly. I really enjoyed the first 10km and managed to high-five my family who had also come to see me. But after that I realised I had to increase my pace if I wanted to make it in less than two hours. All was going well until the sun came out and it got really hot. I was getting dehydrated because I\'d missed the first two refreshment points.
After ¾ of the course I started to battle with my weaker self. But I kept saying to myself...\'1.59 hours\'. The support from the crowd and the musicians on the way was awesome. I realised how helpful it can be when someone claps their hands for you or even shouts your name (although the first time I was confused - did I know that person?) The last two kms were the hardest. I knew John would be somewhere between the 20km marker and the finish line but I couldn\'t see him. That was tough. But then I heard him yelling \'C\'mon Mandy!\' and that gave me the last remaining strength to run a few hundreds meters more.
I made it in 1:57:14, I\'m very happy with that for my first half marathon. Will I do it again? Well, I think the answer is most likely yes. Although I was completely exhausted I know there\'s room for improvement. I made a few mistakes due to my inexperience which I want to correct next time. To summarise my first half marathon experience, I would like to quote a poster I saw on the way: \'The pain goes, but the pride stays.\' It was a great day but without all the support from John and my family I wouldn\'t have made it in less than two hours. Thank you!
 Mandy - 'I\'m ready' |  The spectacular Berliner Dom, complete with portaloos. |
 Lining up at the start in front of the Berliner Dom. |  Not quite lost in the crowd just yet. |
John: Berlin certainly is a place that immediately takes hold of you, pretty much everywhere there\'s something to remind you of the city\'s past, from the bullet holes in some of the buildings to what\'s left of the Berlin Wall. It echoes history.
The start of the half marathon was along side one of the most impressive buildings - The Berliner Dom, which for one day only was adorned with the additional decoration of a long line of portaloos. Being at a race to watch rather than take part in was a new experience for me. After the gun went off and Mandy inched herself away from me and towards the startline, I stood watching for the next 15 minutes as people shuffled past with various different looks on their faces - terror, trepidation and smiles. Even after the main pack had gone through there were still a few people left hanging around at the back, getting changed, going to the toilet, even chatting with the crowd. Obviously not in too much of a hurry to finish!
The layout of the course meant it would only really be possible to catch Mandy once so I thought it would be best to get to a spot early and just stay there to be certain of seeing her. The end wasn\'t too far from the start so we picked out a point but due to the confusing road closures we weren\'t exactly sure which side of the road I would end up on.
I got to the 20km point and calculated that if Mandy was to make her 2 hour target she should pass by in about 15 minutes. The time was probably going quicker for me than it was for her. There were 20,000 people running so even right at the end the congestion was quite heavy and I went cross eyed scanning the road backwards and forwards trying to spot the little orange splodge that I hoped would come dashing past very soon. Everyone looked completely buggered, I could really feel for them all, and just as I was starting to get worried that either I\'d missed her or she was behind schedule.....there she was! On the other side of the road unfortunately but when I bellowed out to her, she caught my eye and started to move her arse just that little bit more.
20 minutes later we met in the finish zone. She was sitting against a lampost looking very zonked but happy; she\'d made her target with 3 minutes to spare. For a first race that\'s incredible and I\'m very very proud of her.
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 | You may have noticed that my mileometer hasn\'t been moving very much recently. With less than desireable timing, I got sick a few weeks ago and training virtually stopped dead for nearly 3 weeks. I don\'t think it was anything worse than a normal cold but, although I was more or less functional after 4 or 5 days, I had a persistant, horrible cough which made breathing, and therefore running, difficult. With less than a week to go, I\'m now better and hoping that I haven\'t lost too much fitness or sharpness. The fact is I probably have but there\'s nothing I can do about it except try and draw on some extra willpower if things get tougher earlier than expected. At least I\'m better in time to run. And at least I\'m in the right country now that Iceland\'s volcanic ash has taken the place of planes over European airspace and many runners are left wondering if they can get a flight over in time to participate. So, it\'s the week before the London Marathon. I\'m having a massage tonight, on Wednesday I\'ll be going to the Expo to register and pick up my number and the rest of the week it\'s just a matter of resting, stretching and eating. |