How's it going?

Since I mentioned marathon training on the blog and forum, some people have been asking me how I've been getting on. Fairly well so far, and thanks for asking! Obviously someone reads this after all.

I've only been going for 2 weeks, though, and at first it was very much a shock to the system. I was exhausted after the first week, but managed some enforced recovery in and around a hotel swimming pool in the south of France, when we went out there for a wedding. That caused its own problems, of course, since I couldn't manage a long Sunday morning run when a) I had no idea where any of the roads went, and b) we didn't even leave the wedding until 3am, so Sunday morning didn't even exist.The solution to that problem was to go for a 5 mile run (Lindsay's already blogged this, so I'll steal her link ) before leaving France on the Monday, then do another 13 back home. I hope that did me some good, because I really didn't feel great doing it.

I had a similar problem this weekend - after another wedding (and not the last this month), I was at the in-laws with no real idea about suitable long routes to get through 18 miles. However, I was shown an 8-mile loop by brother-in-law Simon, so a couple of laps of that with some extra bits added was probably enough (I don't want to measure it and find out it was short).

But probably the best thing to come out of the marathon training is a little Wednesday night training group: me, Tash and James running around the country lanes south of Hitchin (although probably not for much longer, with the evenings drawing in). James isn't training for a marathon, just (even more) running fitness. Tash is probably training for a marathon, if she'd ever work out which marathon she wants to do...

Day One

During our holiday last week, Lindsay (both wife and coach) came up with our marathon training schedules for the next 3 months, before the New York Marathon. (For the story about how we ended up in the New York marathon in the first place, see Lindsay's blog.

"Do you think you can run 16 miles at 8-minute mile pace at the moment?", she asked. Well, there were only 2 problems with that question - firstly, I don't think I've run that far since the last time I did a marathon about 16 months ago, and secondly I rarely have any idea about what pace I'm running, unless I've got mile markers to help me.

"What happens if I say no?" I asked.

"Well, then your marathon training schedule needs to start 2 weeks ago."

So, back from holiday, I thought I'd better get going. Luckily Northy had already arranged the usual Sunday run from the club, and the forum told me that Kevin Ferry (back on a flying visit from Oz) and Tash (hopfully also doing New York) were going to be there too. Stewart Bryant and Richard Thackeray made up our complete set, and we set off in the sunshine towards Weston. After half an hour we were subjected to a heavy downpour, which was actually quite refreshing, then the sun came out for the rest of our run. We had to extend the route a couple of times to get the whole distance in (even for those of us not training for a marathon - which was unnecessarily keen for some of them), but I was pleased to get all the way round without too much trouble.

Good job there was a Grand Prix on in the afternoon, though. I wasn't fit for anything more than sitting on the sofa with my feet up. 13 weeks to go...