Months and months (before running the London Marathon) ago I entered myself into the Berlin Marathon. It was on the back of a successful Dublin Marathon and I thought what could go wrong…

Then London happened, confidence waivered, I spent the next few months training and most importantly praying for a dreary autumnal /early winter day and possibly if last year was anything to go by, some rain. The worst thing that could happen was it be hot.

Rolling on many months, the day before the Mararathon and I’m stood in our hotel bedroom opening the curtains. Not a single cloud in the sky. Bugger. I had always planned to do the international breakfast run on the Saturday and today I would get a glimpse of what was about to come…heat.

The run was very busy, thousands crammed the 6 km of roads up to the olympic stadium, finishing on the track. It was quite good fun and on top of that I was finally able to put a face to a name with James S who I had been in contact through our mutual friend, Sean at Audiofuel.

However, when we got to the end we were presented with a problem. Whilst heading into the stadium to watch us my fiance fell down a large step, really hurting her foot. We chatted to the medics there who iced it and then bandaged it. They said it wasnt broken as she could wiggle her toes but elevate it and see how it was later. Bugger. We headed out of the Stadium and back to the hotel, somehow managing to blag us a lift in an official race car!

Leaving Laura with her foot elevated on the bed I headed to collect my number. The expo was RAMMED and unfortunately there didnt seem to be any medium Adidas kit left. Shame really, as I have a technical T shirt from all of my other marathon campaigns. It was also pretty pricey, much more than the Adidas kit I get here im sure? Nevermind. We spent the afternoon lounging around the pool and chilling and we had dinner in the hotel restaurant. All very relaxed perfect preparation really.

At 630 my alarm went off. It was race day. Time to go. Meeting James in the lobby we walked to the start. Whilst it was a little cold it was clear were heading for a hot one as once again there was not a cloud in the sky. Rubbish really…

I had expectations of a highly efficient setup, vorsprung durk technique and all that. It felt far from that. The bag drop was all over the place, nowhere near enough toilets etc. Heading to the start I saw Sean and Francis of Audiofuel. With hindsight maybe I should have run with them but I wanted to go solo. Afterall a large percentage of a marathon is what it does to the head. Running as a group relieves some of this as you have someone to bounce off at the bad times, but it also seems the easy way out.

I had decided I would make a conscious effort to take on fluid at every station. As it was cups I stopped to walk whilst drinking, I wanted to not overheat again. My race was always going to be slower. For the first time EVER mid race I had to stop for a pee, perhaps at this stage I had overdone it with the fluid!

Whilst hot I managed to hide in the shade for the first 17 or so miles. Then the sun ended up directly overhead. No escape at the hotest part of the day. I slowed right down and sadly my head got the better of me, convinced I was going to go again. My breathing got heavier, I guess I was just worried. I think in the last 6 miles I probably dropped about 10 minutes however I was not going to pass out on this day so it was my sacrifice and it paid off. 3 hours 55 mins later I crossed the finish line no medic needed!

Sadly no finishers tshirt is given for free at the end of this race however a pint of beer was readily available, which I took. I headed back to the hotel on a rickshaw (don’t ask!) and spent the afternoon in the hotel pool, jacuzzi and ice bath. As I write this blog a few days later all this helped keep my legs relatively pain free!

So there we have it marathon start number 5, marathon medal number 4. Not bad for a 27 year old…

What next? Pass!

N

Ps On return to England Laura, my fiance, went to a&e where she was x-rayed. Turns out she broke her 5th metatarsal and is now in a cast and on crutches. She managed to survive on paracetamol and ibuprofen for 2 days and even managed to get to 2 points of the race to support me. The pain must have been immense, far greater than I was enduring on thats for sure! I don’t think I could ask for a more loyal supporter of my silly running campaigns. Thank you Laura. Xx

Yes, that’s right I have looked at the schedule and next week has the words REST scribbled right across it. This can mean only one thing Sunday is the big day. Shed loads of training, loads of long runs later and I’m finally in the taper stage for Berlin.

I don’t really know how I feel about the last few months of training. I certainly am not as race fit as I was before London, but then look what happened! I have spent more time concentrating on fluid intake, especially following one long run a few weeks back where I returned heavily dehydrated (I lost almost half a stone in weight). However, I’m heavier and definitely slower than April you only have to compare my Dorney Half in Feb (1:32) to my Maidenhead Half (1:41) to see the difference! Getting the negativity out of the way, as always, I have covered the distances in training, completing a number of long runs upto 23mi and have been relatively injury free.

At this stage of the day it is mental to not have a plan. I know for a fact, that I won’t be targeting sub 3:30, i’m not confident enough in myself that I can hang on to 8min/mi for the distance. I think I’m going to head out with the intention of running 8:20s but have to asses the conditions beforehand (weather etc) – about 3hrs40. The key is getting around safely before what time I do. I also want to enjoy it, hopefully at that pace I will do.

Update to follow some point next week. Look out for me on the telly

N

This weekend was a busy one in terms of running. On Saturday I headed along to a workshop organised by the Royal Parks, a morning session held at one of Matt Roberts gyms in London. Having been to a couple of full marathon days I was familiar with a large percentage of information provided however that doesn’t mean it was by any means a waste of time.

During the morning two sections really stood out for me. One from Chris at Lucozade talking about nutrition and carb loading. I missed this speech at Dorney as I was running and also because I thought it may just be Lucozade, Lucozade, Lucozade. It turns out whilst there was branding it was a well rounded presentation and quite often Chris clearly insinuated ‘natural’ maybe better. I think the presentation was also aimed for marathoners and not so much for halves (kinda perfect for me) I don’t believe any half marathon runner needs to consider carb loading a week before!

The other highly informative talk was prepared by Matt Roberts gym and gave insights into how to successfuly use a foam roller. Occasionally I pull out my own roller but have only had limited guidance. Today we were demonstrated about 5 routines each ‘massaging’ different parts of the body. A very useful session and one that I believe would help any runner.

The day ended with a session by British Military Fitness. They tailored one of their workouts to runners, warming us up with an interesting routine, doing 3 ish miles at tempo before successfully warming us down. The warmup was a chuckle to say the least, introducing a whole new set of dynamic stretches most of which had all involved chuckling, high 5, low 5, backwards low 5 below leg etc etc, all very amusing. I left the morning with a smile on my face and I hoped it would act as a good warmup for the half on Sunday.

Bright and early Sunday morning with Laura as chauffeur we made our way to Maidenhead for its inaugural Half Marathon. I’d like to say I had always planed to do this race but to be honest I only really heard about it a week ago. Falling perfectly on my buildup for Berlin I took the event as my last hard distance run. I knew before even arriving that my PB from Dorney was not at risk, I have been struggling to even do one 7min/mi at the mo let alone 13.1 (I put that down to the little bit more I weigh now)! If I could do averages of 7:40 throughout I would be happy. The race was branded as flat and I guess in a way it was, there were no big hills to climb. However, perhaps it was just me, but it constantly felt like we were climbing and descending, not flat.

From my point of view the only real negative was water in cups, i’m not a fan, but this wasnt the first and im sure it won’t be the last race like it. I was struggling a bit so took the conservative route and stopped to drink rather than trying (and failing) whilst running! I should also add, next year maidenhead need to sort out the route so it doesn’t need to loop around the block at the very start, I’m sure you can find .2miles somewhere else on the course. From a spectator point of view Laura noted that those at the front got round the little loop before some of the runners had even crossed the start line causing a bit of a commotion at the start!

It was a shame about the weather, after 8m the heavens opened and it RAINED. I returned drenched but so was Laura who was waiting near the finish…I haven’t raced in such poor weather since the Paris half a few years ago. Dismal.

I finished in 1hr40, and managed to hang on to the 740 I had hoped for. I am in the middle of the final tough week before Berlin, the taper starts pretty soon!

For those that wonder, yes the Royal Parks Half is a week after Berlin. I figure this will be a very ‘interesting’ run for me, must remember to warm down properly after the big one regardless (thanks Matt Roberts Gym for some pointers regarding that!)

Till next time…

N

Quite often I hear this line, or something very similar, from friends ‘you are insane’. This almost always refers to my running habits; doing stupidly long runs, running on holidays and running occupying a huge period of my life. Well this weekend whilst in the Lakes with Justin, Ash and Laura I found myself saying it to him about his dirty habit.

Justin "windmilling"

Justin is insane and likes to run up big hills then down them as quick as possible. Forgetting, ignoring and most of the time denying the high risks involved in coming down the side of an uneven Fell. However as he reached the bottom each time his smile couldn’t have been any bigger!

A few weeks ago Justin was adamant I was going to join him for one of these Fell Races. However, having only recently finished ‘Feet in the Clouds’ which explained the perils involved in this obscure event and also due to the fact I’m only a few weeks from Berlin I had to say no to the races. That said on Sunday morning Justin took me on our own little run up to the top of a big hill…and back down again.

Me at the top of the fell behind our campsite

Once again this was another first for me, I have never been to the Lakes before, neither have I really thought I must run up a massive hill and down again. On my day to day training I usually try to avoid any sort of ascent like the plague especially on my long runs. However, today we were running straight towards that big thing just behind the campsite. It became pretty obvious the paths, routes and trails I’m used to would be few and far between and no matter how many times Justin informed me we were on a path, I knew it had only been created by the sheep that looked to us in puzzlement. The terain was uneven,  boggy, hilly and there was clearly no concept of a plan other than up and down. It was not fast due to me being completely out  of my comfort zone.  This definatly trumped the previous ‘interesting’ run, once again with Justin, and I’m sure in his eyes my reaction to what we were doing was pathetic. For those of you who havent tried Fell running but have skied just imagine being at the top of a tough off piste / black run and you come close to what it was like looking down.

Somehow after about an hour and a half and my Garmin auto pausing the run countless times (no Garmin, I hadn’t stopped, I was trying my best just very slowly), we made it down. Now I have exciting anecdote’s including how I got chased by a sheep protecting it’s lamb, how I managed to sink up to my knees in a bog. Thanks to Justin’s very helpful guidance and words of advice

“dont fall and die”

I live to tell to you, oh yeah bracken and heather is interesting too!

I may come across as negative but as with most new running experiences (thunder run, moors run, marathoning…) after a few days I realise how much I enjoyed it and also how amazing the views were. I’m far from booking myself into a race but I definitely intend on returning to explore further…

Ps

I should probably say on Monday I got out and did the longest training run I have ever done in preparation for Berlin. Whilst I haven’t got any races under my belt I dont think Berlin will be PB territory for me. I have struggled a bit in my training of late. On Mondays run I hit 23miles in 3hrs20 if I can maintain that pace for another 3m it would bring me in at 3:47, I think at the moment i’d be pretty happy with that.