Amateur runner, fuelled by cake and real ale
It’s been a while since I last trained for a race as generally I’ve found that for the last few events heading out for a weekend long run alongside a couple of shorter quicker ones midweek has been just dandy in terms of getting me round.
No, I mean really training. And with that comes a whole heap of problems
As I sit here midway through marathon training for my fourth and probably final push at the 26.2 mile distance, I thought now might be a good time to share a few bits and bobs that I’ve learned over the past five or six years since my first effort.
I can’t promise everything I tell you here is the absolute best way to go about things, but I can certainly let you know what has and hasn’t worked for me in the past. I’ve made plenty of mistakes along the way but then finally last April I would say I ran probably the best marathon I’m ever likely to run, using all the benefit of what I’d learned over the years. Hopefully, what I know now will be of some use to you too.
As soon as I drew up the training plan for this year’s marathon, there were one or two chunks that looked horribly daunting written down with the figures for the week staring me in the face. The general cycle of hard week / easy (ish) week as per usual, but with one or two notable…
Happy new year folks! So here we are again, it’s time for the now traditional start-of-year blog. Hitting all these well-worn subjects from years gone by: Hope you had a good Christmas The weather is rubbish The weather has been rubbish all Christmas I’m doing loads of running again Most of this has taken place in really, really rubbish weather…
So here we are, in April. The days are getting longer, spring is a-springing. Time for the annual running checklist. New shoes? Check. Training plan in place? Kind of. Running lots and lots of training miles? Erm…not so much. Building up to the first big event of the year? Well, yes and no. Yes, I…
First up, apologies for the few days’ radio silence. It’s been really difficult trying to get down into words quite how I feel about Sunday morning’s exertions on the streets of Greater Manchester, and a thankfully successful attempt at running 26.2 miles before lunchtime. I’d also like to apologise for the length of this one…
So. Here we are. The pre-race blog. The calm before the storm. The culmination of months of hard work; of blood, sweat and tears. It’s a strange mixture of feelings with just a couple of days left before I have to run 26.2 miles for the second time in my life. Two and a half years since…
I wasn’t planning on doing a full blog so soon after last week’s. For one thing, my time has been pretty much exclusively divided between running, sleeping, eating and working for literally weeks now, with very little in the way of free time for anything else. Last week was the absolute monster week too; potentially as…
What a glorious day out there today. For the first time in 2014, I woke up for the Sunday long run without dread. Where was the rain? The wind? The storms? Awoken by a stunning sunrise, and with the temperature approaching double figures already, suddenly, everything seemed right with the world. For once, I would…
I really, really didn’t want to have to whinge about the weather again this week. I mean, how predictable, right? How very British. Look at the silly little marathon man, moaning about a bit of wind and rain. But seriously, come on. It’s been nearly a month since I last posted complaining about it all,…
