Perilously Close

Suddenly, it's beginning to seem pretty real with the arrival of my information pack from the marathon organisers. I now have my runner number, which could well be their estimation of my race position as I'm sure they aren't expectng more than 8,500 partcipants.

I had a big setback yesterday during my third 12-mile run attempt.  For some unexplained reason, I decided that I would rather just walk after the 6 mile point.  I just couldn't motivate myself to start running, even though I had my stopwatch timimg me.  This was a real psychological setback - and financial.  I made a reverse-charge phone call for support-team recovery from a rural  village  phone-box at a minimum charge of £3.90.  No wonder that BT are removing these Giles Gilbert Scott inspired kiosks from the British street-scene if that's how much it costs to make a call.

But, now I have to enter my tapering phase of training.  That is, reducing the mileage so that I'm in peak, fully rested, condition to tackle the streets of central Cardiff next Sunday.  This means I only have two more, shortish, runs in the next couple of days. And then, it's The Real Thing.

Incidentally, I have my own chip now.  It came as part of the info pack and I have to lace it through my trainers on race day.  It triggers my timed run as I pass the Start and Finish lines.  Conveniently, the result gets sent to my mobile phone by text message.  What will they think of next? 

I'm still trying to raise as much money as possible for my chosen charity, Care for the Family.  Please, if you haven't done so already, would you consider sponsoring me so more families across the UK can be supported?

Hydration, Hydration, Hydration

We all know from our early years that the human body is largely made up of water, amazingly structured on a cellular level to prevent us from becoming an amorphous puddle.  Running large distances causes horses to sweat, men to perspire and ladies to glow.  Ergo, I must be a horse. 

This simple heat-management process (cooling the body by the removal of heat through vapourisation) is great, but uses up a lot of your body fluids.  What Pheidippides really needed as he ran from Marathon to Athens in 490BC to report the astounding victory over the Persians was a regular supply of isotonic hydration fluid to provide not just water, but simple, non-complex, sugars and electrolytes.  But as this was yet to be invented and packaged in a portable clear polyethylene terephthalate container with a resealable sipping spout, he collapsed and died.

So, my longer training runs (anything over 5 miles) require logistical support and planning.  I can either run with a bottle of Gatorade (other fluid replacement drinks are available) in my hand for an hour, resisting the temptation to drink the lot in the first five hundred yards, or I arrange a simple drop-box.  Often this is achieved by jumping out of the car half way round on my route recce, or by depositing it early into my run if I'm doing a multi-lap course (e.g. round a reservoir twice etc).  This also acts as a pathetic little incentive to keep going in the early part of the run in order to reach the plastic oasis.  I said right back in the early days of the blog that the psychological battle would be as hard as the physical - and so it is.

One small note of surprise: when I last looked, Lucozade was an old-lady's drink in a glass bottle with an orange cellophane wrapper - now Lucozade is described as a supplier of sports science solutions.  How did that happen?

It's less than three weeks to half-mararthon day.  Please, please, wil you consider sponsoring me?

Not a pretty sight

The 4 day a week training programme is taking its toll.  Blisters and blackened nails I was expecting. But I seem to have a podiatric perterbance at the top of my right foot.
Has this stopped me? No it hasn't, and I have managed ten-mile and twelve-mile runs on consecutive Sundays.  Now we're really mototoring. An extrapolation of my running time so far  indicates that I should be able to pull off a half-marathon in 2 hrs 20 mins. What can possibly go wrong?
Now we have the running thing nearly in the bag, I've got to whip some sponsorship PDQ.  If you haven't had a look at my fundraising page this is now the time.

Go on. You know you want to!

Quick, nurse: The screens.

Minding my own business, out on my Day 2 run this week, a passing car slowed in front of me, wound down the passenger window, and an unknown arm displayed a sign with this simple message (left).  I was being alerted to the presence of medical staff.

Perhaps this is a new NHS initiative for proactive care.  A few years ago you could go to your GP who offered a "well-man" clinic to spot and deal with early signs of ill-health.  GPs got a payment for this, preventative therapies were applied, and many problems averted before they became a large burden to the taxpayer.  The new policy seems to be based on intimidating perfectly fit athletes on the street, no doubt to scoop up compliant hypochondriacs and whisk them back to a polyclinic to be assessed as part of a PFI revenue-earning gravy-train.  Well, I saw them coming (or rather, I didn't) and was able to make my escape.

Yesterday was Day 1 of the new running week.  Continuing my theme of running around the reservoirs of the UK, I circumnavigated the 5 miles of Draycote Water in Warwickshire, which bizarely is home to a herd of 200 alpacas.  They spit.

But I really do need to get on with fundraising as my training programme appears to be more succesful than my ability to raise much-needed sponsorship for Care for the Family.  I do hope you can help me by going to my sponsorship page, learning about the families across the UK that are being helped, and pledging your financial support. Thanks.

GAS, GAS, GAS!

Maybe it's because I'm a bloke, or merely that I'm a child who's never grown up, but I'm a chronic sufferer of GAS. That is, Gadget Aquisition Syndrome.  And to my delight, I find that, to help with my training, there is every imaginable type of electronic device to locate me, measure my vital signs, record every step, and race me against a virtual competitor on my runs.  Star Trek fans will recognise these items as wrist-mounted Tricorders.  However, I need good justification to persuade the Financial Controller as she's familiar with the symptoms of GAS. Let me have your suggestions.

Pitsford Water (the third largest reservoir in the UK) was the location of yesterday's Day 4 run.  A beautiful location in the Northamptonshire countryside, a site of Special Scientific Interest, and home in summertime to common tern, great crested grebe, and warblers. And I ran around (without stopping or walking) all of its 6.91 miles in 1 hr 15 mins.

I can't believe it! It wasn't nearly as tough as I'd thought it was going to be and I was still managing to do better than eleven-minute miles. The running conditions were good: overcast, interesting and varied scenery, tarmac and cycle-track surface, and an ability to gauge approximate progress around the reservoir.

If you haven't yet taken a look at the great work that Care for the Family does, please take a look now. Thanks.


Since I moved my running from the treadmill to the real world (8 days ago) I have run a cumulative 31 miles. Today is an official rest day, and from tomorrow the training ratchets up a notch....

The Battle of the Mind.

There's a lot stuff in the textbooks about the psychology of the marathon.  Should you be "associative" with your thoughts when running (e.g. "I've been running for 2.35 km already and it's a personal best time for me today, I think I'll adopt a 2:2 breathing pattern for the next 5km to defer the onset of anaerobic excercise" etc) or does "disassociative" better decribe you (e.g. "did I leave the iron on, I hope not - the house might burn down....hold on, did I renew the house insurance? I think so...I tried one of those price comparison websites with the annoying telly ads.... aren't adverts on TV rubbish...I'm proud of the BBC...well worth the licence fee...admired the world over...where shall we go on holiday next year?" etc)? 

Apparently the mental challenge is at least as tough as the physical.

 I might agree with that as, at present, the only thoughts I have when running are on the theme of "are we there yet?". 

But I can announce a new peronal best. I ran a 4 mile out-and-back route yesterday without stopping - all in 43 minutes.  That is better than an 11 minute mile.  The fact that Roger Bannister made history with a sub-four minute achievement doesn't depress me; no-one knows how long he'd have taken to do 4 miles.

A final point - chaffing can be a problem (no names, no pack-drill).  Suffice to say that I've extended the first-aid kit-list with not a little relief.

Tomorrow is Day 4. Be afraid, be very afraid.

Please take a look at my sponsorship page which explains my madness.

Result!

The regime has now moved 300 miles west of Norfolk.  This represents a transition to the aclimatisation stage of the training.  Just as visitors to high altitude destinations such as Mexico City and the Himalayas have to spend time adapting to the thinner air, arrival at Cardiff requires significant exposure to rainfall.

However, the new high-point of the week is that I ran all the 6 miles of my return route along the Taff Trail from Llandaff  to Bute Park in 1hr 04mn. Well, in the interests of absolute accuracy I stopped for 3 minutes (at the 2 mile point) to shelter from a torrential downpour and I walked up the steps - purely in the interests of health and safety.

The observant reader will recall that I wasn't supposed to do my six-miler until the weekend, but due to a miscalculation on my part, I ran a longer route than planned. Oops..

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The reason for all this madness is that I want to raise as much money as possible so that more families will continue to be supported through the events, resources, training and free support networks that Care for the Family offers.
Please take a moment to learn how Care for the Family is helping so many people in the UK today..

There is a Plan. Oh Yes.

The novice runner (me) might not unreasonably expect that training involves running increasingly longer distances.  That is, until you expire, or the half-marathon day comes.  Whichever is the sooner.

But it turns out that this is not how seasoned marathoners-in-training do it.  Oh no. 

Unbelievably, you don't have to run every day.

In fact, according to some clever chaps in the University of Northern Iowa (no, I'd never heard of it either), you should only run 4 days of the week.  Three of the days are relatively short distances (varying, but typically 3 to 5 miles) but the heavy lifting is saved up for Day 4.  Day 4, it seems is almost a holy day in the running week.  To adequately reach this acme of one's weekly exertion the compliant student should rest on the day preceding, and the day following Day 4.  This "resting" is supposed to preserve my fragile frame from injuries that I cannot even spell.

I am already scared of Day 4.  Day 4 is not my friend.  Day 4 is my adversary.  Day 4 doesn't shave or brush his hair nicely.  Day 4 probably has tattoos.

And Day 4 gets meaner as the training period progresses.  This week Day 4 will be just six miles - but he will be a brutish 12 miles in my final week. I shall have to take a map with me in the final week.  I have never run that far in my life.

However,  the plan requires me to run a pattern of 3, 4, 3, 6 miles (totalling16 miles) this week.

I'd value all the encouragement you can give me, so post a comment or sponsor me (and you can do both).
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North Norfolk Boot Camp

This bank holiday weekend has seen a removal to North Norfolk for the first round of the intensive training for the half-marathon.

It's only in the isolation of rural, uninhabited countryside that man and his pair of "technical" trainers (more of which another day) can really get acquainted. After all, this will become a serious relationship.

Apparently my trainers are to be my new best friends.

Having been quite "competent" (a comparative term) on the gym treadmill for thirty minutes continuous jogging, I felt it was time to see the road come up to meet me (or rather, a 5 mile combination of disused railway line, farms track and country roads making up part of the Weaver's Way). For those that know East Anglia, I've added an interactive route map here (to show I can) which tells the tale of Saturday's outing.

So, a combination of jogging and walking enabled me to complete this in 58 minutes, and the finish post was, conveniently, the 17th Century Banningham Crown . The road crew met up with me at this point and, although probably not a UK Athletics approved isotonic rehydration fluid, a pint of Woodfordes Wherry was quickly dispatched.

Now, I ran continuously for only the first 2 miles and thereafter did a walk and jog combo. A kind reader yesterday observed that this wasn't a bad strategy, but at this rate the route marshalls on the day would have taken in the cones and allowed the traffic back onto the course.

I can and will do better, for I have a Plan. And I will talk of the Plan in tomorrow's post.

Thanks for reading, and please take a look at my page for the good cause I'm running for.

A Day of Admin

So this is my first attempt at blogging as it is my first attempt at a half-marathon. But you're very welcome and thanks for finding this blog.

I hope, over the few days, to give a flavour of how an unfit 45 year-old prepares and trains for running 13.1 miles through the streets of central Cardiff to help raise £13,000 for a good cause.

So, today, finally I got around to registering for the Cardiff Half-Marathon on 18th October (just as well as the registration closes in just over a couple of weeks). How awful if I'd have done the training, but not been allowed to participate!

I also loaded my "JustGiving" donation page - only a grim photo so far but I see there's scope for putting video on. I'm thinking that I could do a series of shakey-cam clips which might be a little more engaging than yer average sponsorship page. Mmm.

Also got my first two donations - so we're on our way to the £1,000 personal target.

Oh, and I did a 4 mile hilly-ish route this morning, but disappointed that I (again) walked some of it.

Check back regularly for more updates, and let me know what you think.