Six Weeks of Eighteen

Ok - so much for keeping a training diary. That would be monumentally dull anyway. Am six weeks in to my eighteen week programme and have to say I'm not finding it easy. I think this is for several reasons.

1) The Weather - it is fabulous isn't it, but it isn't great for running 12 miles in (my longest so far this year). Totally energy sapping and slows my times by around 30s/mile
2) loneliness - have usually had some running chums to do my week day runs with (and occasionally my weekend ones) and that adds a big incentive to going out there. Am doing all my running solo at the moment
3) charity - between the last two marathons I raised about £4000 (I think that's about €37) and it was a strong motivator
4) the race itself - we're still umming and aaahing about whether to go to Berlin, so the race might not happen at all. Might be a trip/holiday too far in 2009.

I'm training as if I am doing the race, but it does make things harder.

Have five miles to do today and it looks like another scorcher out there. On the plus side I'm getting a nice tan.

Off to Leeds on Friday for the weekend and then next week - Blur. Looking forward to that but have recently been listening to their albums intensively. They were mostly a singles band, weren't they?

Have tickets for Placebo in December and am looking forward to that more. Their new album, battle for the sun, is fantastic.

Additional note:

Going Around Again

So 18 weeks of obsession starts here.

In 126 days the plan is that I'll be in Berlin and will be running another Marathon. Skipped London this year after a double in 07/08 and now those familiar jitters begin as I start to track against this programme that i've followed a version of each year.



They say there is a degree of "body memory" that means that each year it gets a little easier to hit those long runs. With two marathon experiences under my belt, one good, one bad, I'm hoping for more of the former. Am going to start to work towards diet changes over the next two weeks (less beer and chocolate, more fruit, nuts, birdseed and porridge) and the programme starts with a relatively gentle 24 miles/week but it ramps up pretty smartish.

I'll probably post a fair bit about the highs and lows for my own therapy - not for anyone to read it. Am also tracking my training here at a brilliant UK running site called Fetcheveryone where my username is also sinj.

Not a great start as I'm still kicking a tickly cough into touch, but will have to do, and am not going to start dropping training in the first week.