Official Marathon Preparation – PART 2

Time left until the big day: 3 months, 30 days, 23 hours and 8 minutes
State of mind: Illusive

Okay, this was my official first week of Marathon Training. The schedule has been hanging on the door, quite obtrusive, in sight of everything I do and I should have run 3 times by now and gone swimming once…

If I separate the issue I can confirm I have done something 3 times, unfortunately it had not much to do with running nor swimming, albeit the latter comes a tad bit closer…assuming having a pint in the pub counts as swimming - well something inside me is at that moment anyway.

I blame the freezing fog, or black ice as I conveniently call it. Someone actually told me it was bad to run in fog, I immediately believed him and ordered another pint.

Anyways, enough about my failings this week – will run soon I promise (myself).

On an entirely different note, I decided to volunteer to work at Crisis next week for four days, well nights actually. Crisis is a charity that between 23-30 December opens seven centres in London offering the homeless companionship, a meal and a bed. I will do 4 night shifts starting Christmas Eve, I am not really prepared but looking forward to the experience. I will try to run around that and report back probably next week or so.

In the mean time, I like to wish all of you a very good Christmas, enjoy the time you will spend with family and friends and please do have a drink for me.

Take care,
AZ

Official Marathon Preparation…

Time left until the big day: 4 months, 11 days, 19 hours and 32 minutes
State of mind: Anxious…

I am starting to get very much aware that the Big Day is getting closer rapidly…133 days left…it may seem like a lot, but believe me its not!

I am committed to run it in under 4 hours, so I do need to start training a little more frequent then the current 3 times a week. I did some research and most under four hour schedules are very similar, so picked one that seemed the most interesting (read: doable) with even some cross-training recommendations, like swimming…

Actual preparations so far:

• Printed out the 5 day a week training schedule starting on 18 December
• Stuck it on the wall…
• Looked at it hopelessly and went to the pub next door…
• Looked at it again when I came back….and went to bed
• Bought a swimming suit online the next day (for the cross-training bit) somehow my current bikini didn’t seem appropriate to be used as proper attire in my local county swimming pool, it has more of a design most often seen on tropical far-away beaches, so puchased a proper racing suit.
• Tried on the swimming suit when it arrived and believe me that was a lot harder that it seems ( are they supposed to be soo tight?) and thought about it all a bit more…
• Oh and I did some actual running too… ;-)

Went out 3 times this week, 3, 4 and 5 miles respectively. And I made an interesting discovery, up till a week ago I mostly ran without music, just me and my thoughts, this week I ran with my mp3 player and actually managed to shave off vital minutes each time…so am I go faster because of the music I wonder?

Mind you, it is important to get the rhythm right, as you tend to run on the beat, well I do anyway, apparently! So with the wrong song you risk looking like a right nutter trotting along on the pavement. But if you get the rhythm of the songs to match your running pace…it is like you fly.. for me the song Little Bird of Annie Lennox makes me feel I am running supersonicly …

Must do some more planning, take care for now…
AZ

…The Treadmill

My dentist saga is over, finally …on Wednesday I got my last treatment and just for fun (my dentist’s, not mine) I got the "trainee" dentist assistant to help out! She was good, very good! If good would be nearly choking me with that sucking device they use, that is… I know all new people need to learn when doing something for the first time, but why always with/on me? I always seem to get the trainee bar man, the trainee doctor, the trainee cashier and now the trainee dentist assistant...

Anyhow, back to running, my new shoes have been giving me trouble. The more mileage I did, the more pain I had right underneath my left ankle, to such a degree running started to become painful.

Initially I didn’t realise it might be the shoes…but having trained in my old ones yesterday – with the normal gusts of wind and horizontal rain so common when I venture outside – with no pain at all, I quickly came to the conclusion it must be the shoes.

I purchased them about a month ago, in a specialist running store and had paid dearly, so was slightly gutted to say the least, but also realised I had to do something. I, of course, had not saved the receipt, that would be way to easy, so with a bag filled with charm and my now very muddy, worn, but still relatively new shoes I trotted confidently back to the store.

“Can I help you?”, she said when I entered the store with my clearly visible grubby shoes under one arm and noticeably receiptless as I did not even have a box to proof I had purchased them there… My confidence slipped away very quickly, specifically as I was hoping to deal with the male attendant so I could throw in some female charm…

Nevertheless, they were fantastic, I explained the problem quickly and they had me try on other ones…after much to and fro we decided on another pair, much lower on the sides and still with a lot of cushioning good for the longer run.

To avoid having to go back again with mud-spattered shoes and no receipt, I carefully put the receipt away and decided I would test run them on the treadmill at my local gym, not having a membership, I quite effectively blagged my way into a free “trial” membership and I just got back from running on the treadmill.

And the shoes are fine, but I remember now why I never like to run on treadmills…they are horrible…dangerous to say the least …suddenly you go fast, then you stand still, …I must have been quite a sight to the more “experienced” treadmill user in there.

Leaving you with the funniest commercial every made…coincidently featuring a treadmill…(to view just press the "play" thingy in the middle).

Take care,

AZ