This day has been coming for a long time, and rather unfortunately about 5 days before it I came down with a cold! Dreading the run from the moment we reached French soil things only got worse, with only 3 hours sleep I woke up on a damp Sunday morning and headed down to the Metro station.

After arriving and queing (sadly being british was a downful on this one – need to learn how to ‘queue’ like the rest of Europe!) for a long time for one of the 5 toilets the run was just about to begin and off I went. Looking at my garmin data it appears I started off at a reasonable pace and the first couple of miles went by quite smoothly. The run itself I dont think was that well organised and it was at the start and end this appeared most obvious. With cars parked at the side of the roads and people opting to run on the pavement instead of the road it all seemed a little odd. There were also a LOT of runners, more than I have ever run with before and this caused a fair amount of congestion!

Ignoring the first “drink station” at 5km meant I could assess how they would  be from now on – a bit of a nightmare! Water was on offer which was fine alongside pieces of orange and bananas – whoever thought that is a good idea for people to drop on the floor has never tried running on banana skins!

At about 6km I had planned to see my street team (Laura and Claire) who had accompanied me out on this wet morning, lo and behold they were there – with cameras at the ready, no pictures captured in time I must have been running that quickly!!! I’m sure at the next point in 4km the cameras would be set and ready to go…

I don’t think my body started flailing till about 12km – 7.5miles in. Energy levels fealt low and I just felt myself slowing down further and further. I didnt seem to be able to do anything to speed up.  It was a fighting battle for over 6miles – I didnt want to walk but came close a number of times to it.

2:01 since the start of the run and I was crossing the line – glad to have got round all things considered, slightly upset that it was just over 2 hours but nevermind, hopefully when am at full fitness I should be able to claw back a few minutes.

That’s my first official run of half marathon distance done – back to personal running now up to the big day!

Map and photos to follow shortly.

Another early start for a before work run. Couldn’t go the full distance to work as I hadn’t left any clothes in town so had to hand over a change of gear to my dad who got the train to his work.

Beans on toast down and away I went. Following the same route as I intended on doing to work I set off to Lea Bridge Road, through Dalston then into town, past Kings X and Euston. Didnt get lost at all today which was a bonus!

Run went well, distance came in shy of 11miles, all good training for Saturday. For my birthday I got my own Garmin watch so went with that on today.

Garmin Link to run information.

Thoughts about the run was it went well, reasonable speed, no major niggles other than a little bit of a tight hamstring later this afternoon.

Hopefully this should mean sundays half marathon should go well….Hopefully!

Since starting this Marathon campaign I have been hoping one day to run into work, didnt manage to get a huge distance on Saturday so this morning was the opportunity…

Having researched a route which should be around the 14-16mile marker I set off early in the morning, still half asleep but with no going back. The first 6 or so miles was old familiar territory, I’ve run this before and new it well. However, after turning left at the end of Lea Bridge Road I was venturing into unknown territory. Armed with a rough route in my head I set off, got lost, followed bikes and generally didnt know where I was going until eventually I popped out at Old St. I knew Old St, but not where to go from there, but figured that I was heading in at least the direction of the West End, a few miles, dodgy turns and busy streets later I finally got to Tottenham Court Road, where I was to start on the 4/5 mile long and straight road to work.

Forty minutes later was walking into the office, ready for a day ahead. I walked into work at bang on 10am – not even late! Pretty good going even if I do say so myself.

See below my route to work

and click here for the garmin data. Here is my nike+ graph stuff

more info can be found here. As you can see, since callibration the data seems a lot more accurate. It was about 1/2 a mile out, which over a distance of 15ish miles isnt too bad!

Following a big meal at Benihana the night before and what was likely to be a relatively busy weekend, what with me becoming “masterchef” for the evening, I decided to get up quite early and pound the roads.

I had planned on going up to tower bridge, dumping my stuff in a gym then running the last half of the marathon route but timings and my general lazyness got the better of me and i decided to do a local run. My dads 10mile route as shown here…

This route is fairly hilly and if im totally honest slightly dull, doesn’t really have the same kind of glamour as running into London but its miles regardless, and that’s what I need at the moment! My ipod failed midway through which made the run even more laborious. Anyway here is the route of my run for all to enjoy!

Saturday marks another long run and also the day before my nan’s birthday. Using the opportunity to go visit my nan I plotted my route, very similar to before up until Tower Bridge.

The run, on the whole, went pretty well. Unfortunately, due to dodgy pavements around Westminster I tripped up at about mile 11. I was very close at this point to giving up – and was actually fairly close to my nans at this point, but decided whilst I could still move I should carry on and I did upto Wandsworth Rail Station before turning back on myself for a few miles back to my nans.

Turns out this was a fairly tough run and it appears for distances over 13/14 miles I am starting to feel it. Need to keep pushing on these longer distances otherwise its gonna be a challenge on the day!

See here for the route.

Today I decided to run one of my first runs that really had a purpose. My parents were heading over to my nans so I thought I would sort a route out and run over there. It’s not a stupidly long distance (about12miles) and I have already ran the first 7or so miles before on previous sessions.

The route is actually fairly flat see here and also fairly straight.

The run went well, i’m sure its not record breaking pace but I continually ran for the whole distance. I quite liked the route apart from busy bits around Aldgate and The Elephant and Castle.

No amusing anecdotes – earphones remained in one piece…all good

On Friday evening I headed down to Rayleigh and had a meal with a number of the people running in this years FLM for the havens group. It was a good evening and I managed to have a chat with a few people who it turns out were all hoping to run a similar time to me as well as a physios and masseur.

The group have 3 scheduled training runs from now until the marathon. I am away for the next one so thought it would be a good idea to head down this morning and see how it was. The run was good – we stuck as a pack for 80% of the route running at what was apparently 9min mile pace (sub 4 hour marathon time). It was a VERY early start for me, especially as I had to drive down to Rayleigh, hence the alarm was set for 6:45 (almost an hour earlier than my normal work day start time!) and had hit the road by 730.

The Course

The course started off quite nice. The first 8/9 miles were actually fairly enjoyable. The group was running together and at a pace where we could hold conversation. I have never been to Rayleigh, so the route was a complete unknown to me other than the passing comments from others to expect some hills at the end. This was by no means an understatement. At about mile 9 I believe it was, we hit a fairly steep incline and from that point on it felt that there was a consistent rise in gradient. The last 3.5 miles certainly tested me. I think I’m going to have to routinely put in half marathon distances as 10miles seems to be the cut point from what seems “easy”.

All in all though a good run, testing, but what I need. Also fairly happy that there a group of runners for FH all running around my pace.

No rest for me it looks like though – hence a day off running tomorrow but back to the roads on Tuesday…

Welcome to my “training blog”.  I’m not going to lie, i doubt this will be updated regurlarly but who knows! Anyway, it is supposed to be a log of my training for the next 113 days to the start of the marathon, a brief rundown (no pun intended) of each long run I do and links to the nike stats etc.

15/16 Mile – “Long Run”

2009 begins and with it my longest run to date, whilst this run is still a long way short of the marathon distance it is good grounding and my intention is to increase this distance by 10% ish every two weeks.

Route

Chose a newish route – heading from home in Woodford I tried to stick to the Central Line up to mile end (running – not on the tube!). At Mile End I swung a right down to Hackney where I got a tiny bit lost before coming out around Clapton at mile 11/12. The remaining bit of the run I know and have done before, albeit the other way. The whole thing felt relatively flat, it was quite quiet out with it being a Friday.

Conditions

A little chilly so sadly couldn’t look my trendiest and donned my long trousers however dry and clear, with a bit of sun.

Playlist

Standard great south run playlist – will upload tracklist at some point.

Thoughts

As with my previous 13mile+ run the first 10miles seemed relatively painless – at around 13miles I started to tire a bit – getting over this hurdle is the essential part of the next two months as I feel i could conformable do a half marathon now but not the full…

Neil