As I write this post, on Wednesday 15th June, I am reminded of two very important things.

1. Today is my 10th wedding anniversary (don’t worry, I remembered and got both a card and a present).
2. It is precisely 108 days until the London Marathon. Or if you prefer, 15 weeks and 3 days.

Most marathon training plans are 16 weeks long (or at least the ones I write are), so you will be pleased to hear that I have been out running and the training is precisely on track. To be fair, after just 4 days you would expect it to be going fairly well, so I am not that sure this is something to shout about, but I will take any win where I can get it.

It is around this time, when marathon runners start their training “for real”, that people’s minds can drift to the big day.

For many, especially first time marathon runners, the event itself can seem very daunting. Thoughts such as “I struggle to run 5 miles, how am I ever going to be able to run 26?”, or “I don’t look like a runner. I don’t feel like a runner. What am I doing?” may start to sneak into a runners mind.

For me, I am no different to the rest. Yes I have completed a few marathons in my time, but the training and the event is equally as daunting no matter how many you have run before. But I do have one advantage. I can start to dream!

I can visualise what it might be like out there on the course. Imagine the supporters cheering me over Tower Bridge. Imagine passing all the landmarks, like the Cutty Sark, Big Ben and Parliament, the O2, Canary Wharf, The Tower of London and many more. I can wonder about what the weather will be like. Whether I will be injury free (fingers crossed) on the day. I can imagine a world of possibilities.

The dream, for me, is very real. I have always wanted to run London Marathon. It is virtually impossible to get a place via the ballot these days. I think the odds are around 40/1. This is why my charity place through Daisy’s Dream is so important to me. Such a wonderful charity, giving me the opportunity to run the race I have watched so many times on TV, and dreamt of running since I first took running up in my mid 30’s.

But sadly, you cannot dream your way round a marathon course. There is a LOT of work to be done before the big day. Lots of miles to run. Lots of preparation. I need to be both mentally and physically ready. This is where having marathon experience does come in handy. I know roughly how to train. I understand how much I can put my body through without getting injured. On the mental side of things, I am in the fortunate position of being 100% confident. This comes with experience, and willpower. My determination (others may call this stubbornness) means that if I start the race, I will finish it. After all, I managed to run almost 40 miles with 3 broken ribs (I’ll tell you that story another day), so if I can do that, I can do anything!

So as you read this, and I sit here gazing out my window at home, wondering just how hot it is today and convincing myself that running in this heat at lunchtime is madness (don’t worry, I will go anyway), please spare a thought for all us runners.

1000’s of us have just started our London Marathon training plans. We are excited and terrified in equal measure. There are so many things that can go wrong, but also so many things that can go right. This is the way of the runner. Whether we are fast or slow, old or young, skinny or not so skinny (like me), we all share the same dream. To cross that finish line in London on the 2nd October and in my case, and likely most others, to raise plenty of money for our chosen charities.

If you feel inspired, there are some exciting opportunities for you to get involved in raising some money for Daisy’s Dream, with places in both the Virtual London Marathon and the Big Half up for grabs. Follow the links below for more information.

The Big Half – https://www.daisysdream.org.uk/event/the-big-half-2022

Virtual London Marathon – https://www.daisysdream.org.uk/event/tcs-virtual-london-marathon-2022

Will be updating twice a week for a while, moving onto three times a week in the run into the marathon. So if you like my posts, please use the link at the top right hand side of this blog post to subscribe to my mailing list, so you don’t miss any updates.

Speak soon all, and for my fellow runners, good luck for your training. Remember, the event itself is just a 26 mile run. All the hard work is done in training, so make sure to enjoy as much of it as you can. The training lasts a lot longer than the event itself! A LOT longer!!!!!

TTFN

Snooky

Greetings dear reader. I hope today finds you well, and if you are reading this in early May in the UK, I hope you are enjoying the beautiful weather as much as I am.

Despite deciding in my last blog post that I would run every other day, in a controversial and unconventional twist to usual marathon and running training, I have not been doing any running what so ever. The main reason for this is that in the time that I would usually devote to running I have been trying to improve my golf instead, as I recently joined a golf club.

The good news about trying to improve my golf is, I find it equally as hard as I find trying to improve my running. It is like trying to improve skills is difficult. Like you don’t instantly become good at things after giving them a go for a while.

Now of course, I am aware that building skills takes time. The problem with this is, I have played golf for well over 20 years, and been running for almost 10. You would have thought this would have been enough time to build up some reasonable skill in both, and if I am being honest and fair to myself, I think I probably have.

I can play a competitive round of golf, absolutely love playing and am probably about average in terms of skill. (photos below from a recent round at Hindhead, where I am not a member, but would dearly love to be).

I am probably also an average runner. I plod along at about 10min/mile pace on shorter runs, which I reckon is about average. Maybe a bit slower than average, but never the less, somewhere very much in the middle.

Also, this birthday I am 44. And it is hard to improve your skills in your 40’s. The prime of my life is really behind me at this point. But just cause something is hard, does not mean it should not be attempted. On the contrary, the harder or more challenging something is the more it makes me want to do it.

This finally brings me onto the point of this blog post. What do you do when one marathon is not enough? Well you book another one. Then, just to double down, you also book a slightly different but equally big challenge around the same time and bingo, you have suddenly made something that is hard an awful lot harder.

Challenge number 1 take place on the 3rd/4th September and is the South Coast Challenge, a 100km hike from Eastbourne to Arundel. This challenge is courtesy of my wife, who decided to take this on to raise some money in memory of a friend of ours who died far too young, leaving behind too young kids and a wife. I love walking and my favourite person to walk with is my wife, so I thought I would join her and keep her company. Rather than me tell you about it, check out her blog to see what it is all about. And before you say it, I know what you are thinking. Yes my wife and I both have blogs. That is just how fecking cool we are. Don’t be too jealous. Haters gonna hate 🙂

Challenge number 2 will be London Marathon on the 2nd October. This is a marathon. In London. The big one. Probably the most famous marathon in the world. The one I am already VERY nervous about, despite it being 20 weeks away.

Challenge number 3 will be the Beachy Head Marathon on the 22nd October. Another marathon. Starting in Eastbourne. I have run this one before a few times. It is tough. Very tough. All marathons are tough, but this is rather hilly. And usually very windy. And often very rainy. It’s a great event.

So those are my three events for 2022. Nothing until September, then it all kicks right off! It’s going to be interesting for me, as training for a 100km hike is going to be a bit different to a training for a marathon. I have never trained up for a long hike before. Looking forward to it.

The biggest challenge in all of this will be recovery. In marathon training, your hardest week of training is 3 weeks before the event. You then “taper” (which is when you reduce your training load), to reach the start line at the marathon in peak condition. A two week taper allows your body to recover from the training load and you lose very little fitness during this time.

I am going to complete the two day hike with my wife the weekend before my longest training week. This could easily result in too much training load and that risks injury, which is the last thing I need just before the London Maraton. Fingers crossed that I will be in good shape by then and find it easier than I imagine it being.

Speaking of shape, so far so good on Project 80. Weigh in again tomorrow to see if I can continue the downwards trend.

Anyway, enough of my ramblings. Wherever you are reading this I hope you have a great day/evening and if anybody fancies a round of golf, let me know.

TTFN

Snooky

As keen readers of this blog will be aware I had a bit of a disasterous run last week. (link here)

My solution to this bad run is the same as my usual solution when I face any sort of adversity. To dig in and to try harder. After my awful run, I resolved to keep doing the exact same loop that I was attempting until I can run it with ease. After all, the thing to do after you fall off a horse is to get back on (apparently). To be honest, I have never ridden a horse and I imagine if I did fall off it would hurt like hell, as I am old and feeble these days, but the analogy still works.

So two days after my disasterous run, I went out on the same 4 mile (6.4km) loop and this happened.

A HUGE improvement on the 55 minutes it took me 2 days before, and much closer to the pace I would expect. Before you start high fiving yourself with joy, this is not all good news. My HR was a lot higher than I would have liked at that pace.

Under ideal circumstances the pace that I was running at (which is about 10 minute/mile pace for those of you who live in the stone age and still calculate your running in miles) should be in Zone 2. My HR should be hovering around 140 at that speed. As you can see it was mostly up in the 150’s.

The problem with this is that to train effectively, the majority of your training should be at an “easy” pace. Slow enough you can have a conversation. This is the 80/20 rule, which I will post about properly some time soon, but essentially 80% of your training should be easy and 20% should be hard. We are talking really rather easy and really rather hard. here. Opposite ends of the scale.

What lots of endurance athletes do (me included) is complete the majority of their training somwhere in the “comfortably uncomfortable” range, which for purposes of the diagram above is Tempo moving up to Threshold. I can run in this zone for a long time, which is all well and good, but 80/20 research shows that the fastest fitness gains are made when you avoid training in Z3/Z4 almost entirely.

The problem I have is that Z1/Z2 is so incredibly slow for me that it is practically walking and often my ego gets in the way and I just wanna run. Somthing for me to address in the future.

Anyway, the first run after my disasterous run was good, so 2 days later I set off again on the same course, and this happened.

Same route, with almost exactly the same time and pace, but the HR was higher again still. Now the explanation for this is an easy one. It was much hotter. Like over 20 degrees. And Snooky does not cope very well when it is hot. I love the heat. It does not love me.

Taking the positives , that is two runs on the same route that are getting somehwere back towards the pace that I would like.

The plan is to keep running this same 4 mile route once every 2 days until I can complete it in around 40 mins and my HR stays mostly in Zone 2. As you can see below, I have run this pace before, but it was a while ago now.

So above is the same route (actually 480 metres further) in under 40 mins. Sadly, there is no HR data for this run, but I imagine this was close to flat out for me 4 years ago, so likely to be high. Anyway, it proves that the speed is possible. Now just to get the HR down.

It’s only 7 or so weeks until my proper marathon training plan kicks into place. If all goes well, by then I will be running at sub 10 minute mile pace (sub 6 min/km) with a HR around the 140 mark and will be in a good spot for starting my marathon training. Also, I should weigh a lot less than I do now (see Project 80 for more details).

Hope you are all keeping well out there in the world and for those of you in the UK you are enjoying the good weather.

TTFN

Snooky

Today I sent an email to Centurion advising them that I would not be running the South Downs Way 100 this year.

My training has gone pretty much to plan and I stuck with the programme I wrote myself. It was a good plan, ramping up slowly and giving me a rest week ever 4 weeks to allow the training effects to kick in and giving my body time to recover.

Despite all that, somewhere it went wrong cause as I got to the business end of the training (just 7 weeks to go) my body just could not cope. My knees sound like somebody is grating concrete inside them when I walk around, my hips are permanently in pain and I just seemingly fell apart.

This could be for any number of reasons. Training load too high, pushed too hard, didn’t do enough strength and mobility work, wrong shoes (though I doubt this one), not enough sleep, not enough rest, poor diet, or it could simply be due to the fact that I reached my natural limit.

Either way, I will not be lacing up my trainers and making it to the start line this year.

I do have half a plan in my head to try and run again in 2024, but a lot of things would need to slot in place in order to make that a reality.

The good news in all of this is that withdrawing from this race gives me a chance to concentrate on my other race this year, which previously had a bit of a back seat but has now jumped to the front.

My next blog post will be all about this. In the meantime I will just have to mentally overcome the disappointment of not making the start line, regroup and go from there.

For all those who do make the start, I really hope the race is kind to you and that you make the finish.

TTFN

Snooky