I am currently training to run the Brighton Marathon on April 10th. It is a strange and somewhat out of character activity for me to have willingly chosen to participate in. I officially signed up at the end of January, although, thankfully I had been running for a week or so before then. I suppose now, a few weeks in the full horror of what I have undertaken to achieve is starting to dawn on me.
I suppose one of the things that motivated me to attempt the marathon was running in a charity 10km race last November. My girlfriend lives above a pub and some of the regulars had organised a team to run the race for Brighton Housing Trust. As someone who works part-time in the housing department of my local council I am aware of what excellent work they do, and, in a climate of government spending cuts, organisations like BHT need all the help they can get. I roped Aaron in to run with me then as, besides being an excellent keyboard player and backing vocalist, he's a fully qualified personal trainer and has run a marathon before.
The night before that race day turned out to be a surprise birthday party for our old friend Jonny in the pub closest to our old school, which we somehow managed to frequent throughout sixth form. The Dyke Tavern has recently been transformed into a family oriented gastro pub... gone are the two pool tables, the darts, the bar billiards, the indie-jukebox and the cheap, fatty baguettes; replaced with a more mature clientele and a prohibitively expensive (for me) menu. However, on that night they were boasting a guest ale at £2 a pint. All thoughts of saving pocket and preserving race form were chucked out the window and we both drank about eight pints of the stuff!
The next day we made it through the race in a fairly reasonable 52 minutes, suddenly I felt like I actually could be athletic, even with a tonne of booze in my gut. The flames of my future marathon acquiesce had been well and truly stoked.
Flash-forward to now and the harsh reality of marathon running... 10km is nothing it turns out! 10km is 6.2 miles and a marathon is 26 miles 385 yards or 42.2 km... so over four times the distance! Which means if I could run at exactly the same pace it would take me 3 hours and 40 minutes to complete the marathon, which is no mean feat. I'm actually aiming for roughly 4 hours 15 minutes, but that's still going to be damn tough, just to keep running, as I've been finding in training this last week.
Here's a little peak into what I've been doing in the last week:
Thurs 3rd Feb - I did a 7 mile run.
Fri - rest
Sat - I did the 7 mile run again, this time in the drizzly rain - my first run in really unpleasant conditioins.
Sun - I was going to attempt a 13 mile run (from Kemptown to to Rottingdean, then turn back and run to Hove lagoon and then back to Kemptown)... unfortunately the first 7 miles of the journey over the cliffs to Rottingdean and back in strong winds absolutely killed me, on the way back I was running as hard as I could up hill and into the wind but not really moving anywhere!
Mon - Aaron realised we were a week out on the running schedule he'd been following, we were meant to do 15 miles on Sunday! We decided to reorganise the schedule to set us up to do the 15 miler on Saturday coming and ran a 6 mile fartlek... fartlek is a sort of training where you sprint for a set distance then slow jog the same distance and then sprint again. Repeating this for 6 miles is one of the hardest things I've had to do so far!
Tues - We ran another 6 miles together.
Weds - I was going to run again yesterday but my legs were so sore from four days in a row I decided to rest them... which means
Today - I'm going to have to attempt some sort of run, but not too much so I don't exhuast myself for the 15 miles on Saturday morning! Killer. I could probably bang on for hours about nutrition and stuff, but I'll leave it at that for now, there's plenty of weeks to go before the actual run and so I'm bound to give a progress report before then. Today should be day one of not smoking or drinking ( more than a pint a day, which is apparently good for you!) so I'll have to see how well that goes (may well be essential to manage the big run)!
Please donate to my charity (Teenage Cancer Trust) they're awesome (and I need to raise £650)!!!
http://uk.virginmoneygiving.com/fundraiser-web/fundraiser/showFundraiserProfilePage.action?userUrl=AdamKidd
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