tired legs

i was supposed to get up early this morning and go for a two hour run before breakfast, but to be honest i really need the sleep. after all those weeks of snow and ice its come as a bit of a shock to the system to be having to work so hard. i did a 10 miler on wednesday night and it feels quite evident from how i feel when i'm running that i have unfortunately lost a bit of speed from my legs. i also feel like i'm burning loads of energy and i'm consuming loads of calories in the name of keeping my energy levels up.

the plan for marathon training that i have formulated based on the advice that other people have given me is this. i will do two longer runs per week one of about 10-12 miles and one longer of varying lengths. i do in the name of making sure that i'm strong enough to complete the distance want to do one run of 26 miles probably about 7 weeks before the event before i start to gradually taper my training down. i will start to introduce faster sessions in to my training at about march time but for now its a case of trying to build the miles up to the necessary volume and hopefully trying to fit the time consuming mileage in to my busy schedule some where.

for the moment i'm also looking at options for the sort of races i can do after the marathon and i have looked at trail races and some mountain running but that may involve going to the continent

the big build up starts here...

i am now officially in marathon training, ready for the big day in a couple of months time. started off with a 6 miler tonight and will be booking some long weekends at work with the intention of using those to do some big 24-26 mile runs to make sure that i'm strong enough to complete the distance. i need to get the saturdays off because i don't want it to interfere to much with my new found church activities which i've been going to for the past month or so. There you go i've said it and its out in the open now. i'm a proper convert to christianity rather than some one who says they believe in god but thats as far as it goes, like i was before. not very many of you know this but i used to go to church when i was younger and i was quite surprised that a lot of my friends from twenty odd years ago were still going albeit in a different location

back to what i was talking about before, theres some thing else that i want to put on record here as well before it escapes my mind, namely, that for a bit of an adventure i want to do the mount snowdonia marathon, which is undeniably the toughest in britain, and one of the hardest road races possibly in eu rope or even the entire world. if i run a fastish time there (its never going to be a pb course) then that will put to bed forever any argument that there is between me and scott over who is the best distance runner out of the two of us.

i will, when i get a new car for the purpose of variety in my training be doing some runs in the mendips over some really hilly courses like shipham hill, rowberry hill and cheddar gorge, but again that is dependant on me getting a new motor in time!

its been a bit of a while

its been a busy month for me as i'm sure it has been for many of you with christmas and all the other things that are. since we last spoke i have had enforced breaks from running due to various different things although i have managed to squeeze in several runs and even a race on boxing day at clevedon, the famous four mile road race that runs around the old town centre. i have also had 2 tummy bugs and a visit to the bristol royal infirmiry where i had 5 stitches in a head wound because i slipped on some ice when i was out jogging (seves me right for running on ice) but with having had 3 days off for a bug i was just itching to get out again.

some of the drunks we met in a and e were, shall we say, interesting with one bloke trying to con money out of every body, by claiming that he'd 'met' them some where else along the line and a whole host of other drunks and people who'd been in accidents and fights and/or were high on other substances that aren't as legal as alcohol!