Total Mileage: 1,013.14
Target Mileage: 1,010.63
Monthly Mileage: 167.02
What a month! It’s official I’ve passed 1,000 miles and the halfway point of the challenge. I’m now closer to Moscow than I am to home! I’ve now reached Poznan in Poland.
26.2 Miles
Last month I spoke about finishing my marathon training programme with either a marathon distance or Shrewsbury Marathon. In the end I decided to run a very low key marathon distance to bring forward the next phase of running towards Amsterdam. Running a marathon after work is a very different challenge to running in an event for a number of reasons. The main implication was how I might plan my hydration and nutrition without any support stations. I planned to split the run into four sections:
Section 1 – Start from work and head around the KC stadium and West Park before heading to the start line of the Hull 10k.
Sections 2 and 3 – Two laps of the Hull 10k route.
Section 4 – Leave town and head home to finish.
This was the strategy I employed for all my long runs after work previously. Mentally I’ve found this easier to tackle then running to one single point and heading back home as it’s easier to visualise. The real tricky bit and what I have struggled with most is hydration as I’ve not wanted to carry fluid with me on my run. This time though I thought I had to just to guard against ‘hitting the wall’ so I carried a bottle of Powerade. I’ve also practiced with energy gels and took 4 sachets out with me to have every 40-45 minutes.
After leaving work section 1 was fairly straightforward as I viewed this as long warm up. I was aiming for 8:00/mi pace and managed to stick to this fairly rigidly. Part way through section 2 I found a spot to hide my bottle and I was going to pick it up after finishing section 3. The focus was on getting through the sections. I wouldn’t check my mileage until section 4 when I needed to plan a long enough route home to hit 26.2 miles.
Section 4 was where it became tough but I’d been in this position before on my long run. This time I had the advantage of having a sports drink although it was a struggle to drink at this point. I made it home but still had 2 miles to go so carried on into Willerby. I felt the ‘wall’ creep on me but was determined to finish well. I eventually finished 26.3 miles in 3:31:15 adding 0.1 of a mile just to be sure! My previous best was 4:26:28 in London in 2009. The most satisfying element was that I ran the whole distance.
The Aftermath
At this point I was about 50 miles up on the 5.5 miles average equating to about 9 days ahead of schedule although I would lose this as I gave myself a few days recovery time. It was a bit of a shock to be honest as I walked like John Wayne for a couple of days but I felt good considering and not going out was strange. Four days later I went back out to loosen the legs with a couple of runs but then I came down with a bit of flu; something I gather that isn’t uncommon after putting your body through a big distance. The following weekend I had the Owston Ferry 10k so had to get out on the Saturday to break off some of the rust. Sunday was 10k day and I managed a time of 40:48 still suffering from the back end of the flu and some rustyness.
Following the race I began to plan the second part of the year up until the Amsterdam Marathon in October. I looked at the race calendar and matched it to a training plan and saw that my last run before Amsterdam would be the 29th September. Checking through the race calendar I noticed that the Loch Ness Marathon fell on the same day. I started to wonder whether I should enter. Experience from the previous 6 months suggested that it was likely that my plan might slip by a couple of weeks so I set the plan up to finish on the 29th September rather than 20th October just in case. If the plan did slip then I was covered for Dam. On the other side I have much more confidence in my fitness to finish a marathon with all that training banked but I would leave it until the last possible moment to enter the Loch Ness Marathon when entry closed at the end of June.
Scheduling out the 15 week programme it was clear that the weekly mileage will increase from the previous six months. My recovery runs have increased from 30-45 minutes to 45-60 minutes and I’m straight into longer distances for my long runs but this shouldn’t be a problem with the fitness base I’ve built up. As a result I’ve projected that by October I should be about 150 miles ahead of the 5.5 miles average. This equates to about a month which is ideal when I don’t want to be running over Christmas!
After the short rest I began my second marathon training plan and I have to admit it didn’t start particularly well. Initially I felt very rusty and my legs were heavy. This in turn didn’t leave me with the overwhelming feeling of wanting to go out. I’ve persevered though and managed to stay on track and gradually I’ve got back into the swing of it. I had the 1,000 mile mark to aim for!
The day before the Humber Half Marathon I reached 998 miles. It was quite nice to know that exactly halfway through the year I was going to pass the halfway point of the challenge and that it would be marked by running an event. The race itself didn’t exactly go to plan but I managed to finish in 1:40:11 in pretty warm and muggy conditions.
The graph below summarises my progress month by month. The funniest bit is the lack of running I did in the latter half of 2012!
What next?
So what have I got to look forward to in the lead up to Amsterdam? Well it’s getting serious now with 2 marathons and an Ultra event. Earlier in June I entered Hell on the Humber; a 12 hour night race. I added a few more races to the calendar including the Eccup 10M and Walkington 10k in July. I was lucky enough to be accepted for the Great North Run in September. After the Humber Half Marathon I finally bit the bullet and entered the Loch Ness Marathon meaning I’ll be running 2 marathons in 3 weeks!
I’ve learnt a lot from the first six months and there are number of things I want to build upon such as my nutrition. Being completely honest it is definitely my weakest element. I gorge on donuts when I feel like it and I don’t eat with any consistency. I could go all day without eating and then tuck into a big roast dinner at night followed by some form of sweet delicacy after. The next day I could just snack on chocolate. This is my biggest area for improvement.
I can’t sign off without a mention to the people who have sponsored me. Raising money in this climate is pretty tough and whilst it hasn’t been the primary reason for doing this challenge it means a lot when I see someone has sponsored me. I enjoy running and in a lot of respects running the races is much easier as you have people on the sidelines cheering you on. The real challenge comes from the times when I’ve felt tired after work and there’s no-one around to give you a kick up the backside. When I see that total increase it gives me a boost to keep going. So far I’ve raised just over £200 so I’m 10% of the way there but I know there are others who have told me they’re going to sponsor me which is great. Secretly I’d love to raise a pound for every mile I run.
There’s a lot to build on from the first half of the year but I’m as determined as I’ve ever been to meet the challenge.
Paul Legard 