5 days to go...

I haven't written for a while. 

We're now only 5 days away from the big day, and people keep on asking me if I'm ready.

Is anyone every ready for a marathon? I don't think anyone would ever say yes.

I haven't reached the long run I was supposed to do a few weeks ago. The day I had planned the 15 mile run, it was awful weather. Rain and wind were lashing down. But I still went out.
I managed 13 miles by which my socks were soaked and they started rubbing.

Since then, I've done some more running, but not long ones. 
I've kept on doing my strength training.
I've upped my water intake.
I've done regular stretches to increase mobility.

Last week Wednesday, The Children's Trust, the charity I'm running for organised a run along the route of the last 4-5 miles.
We had some stops along the way to get lots of tips. 
It was hot and humid.

With 5 days to go, I'm actually looking forward to the day.
Tomorrow, I have my last treatment by Lucy Howe, of Healthy Body Healthy Mind, to make sure all my muscles are fired up properly for Sunday, and to release any potential tension.

Tomorrow evening, I'm also going to Excel to pickup my runners number and wander around the expo.

I really need to start thinking about nutrition for Sunday. I have my energy biscuits, but will that be enough with water and a banana?

I'm praying for a grey, dull and cool day on Sunday, although that might not be as much fun for spectators.

I have quite a lot of friends who are coming down to cheer us all on. So am really looking forward to it.
And that includes my amazing coach, Rachael Hunt, from Life Without Limits Endurance, who has been very patient with me, even if when I wasn't following the programme 100% of the time.
I wouldn't be as confident as I am today, without her advice, support, and programme.

Unfortunately, it might look like Rakhee and myself won't be running together after all. We found out that because she had a ballot place and I have a charity place, we are starting in different places and the first 3.5miles aren't following the same route.
So we might not find each other once the routes converge.
It's a big shame, but we'll just have to keep going.

I'm also looking forward to have my friend Petra come round on Saturday for a sleep over and walk to the start.
She's done it last year and doing it again this year. 

Let's see what happens on the day....

Half Marathon and more

I got very spoiled by my partner Richard, and got very lucky with the weather....

As part of my birthday present, he booked a hotel in Kingston to be near the start of the half marathon.
And the hotel had made sure to provide an extra early breakfast on a Sunday morning for all the runners staying there.

The night before the race we found a lovely Italian restaurant. En route, we found the sign for the 4mile, and I nearly stayed there to save me some time the next day ;-)

 
 With an 8:30am start it made a big difference. Especially when it comes to eating proper food vs eating in the car.

It was a lovely morning. Very cold to start with, but sunny. And it stayed dry, until 1h after I finished.

I was on my own the whole way, but the route was quite nice. I can't say I loved it, but I didn't dislike it or ask myself why the hell was I doing this like I did two years ago in Edinburgh.

Although I was a few minutes slower, we had 1/2mile at mile 12 in thick mud, which was really unhelpful.

I think it was one of the first races where I actually overtook people. Sounds funny, but I for once didn't come last. YEAH!

Since then, the runs have been shorter, but actually not very good. My legs are tired and only starting to recover now. So a few runs had to be cut short. Which isn't very good, but I know I sometimes have to listen to my body as well.

Especially as I have to face a 10mile run on Saturday afternoon, and a 12 mile run next week Wednesday.
Both I will most probably have to do on my own as Rakhee can't join me.
Might try and see how it feels to run with some music. I only have rubbish earphones, that might be falling out of my ears every minute, so we'll see how it goes.

I've been thinking a lot about this training process, and I have to admit that had I known how intense it would be, together with work, I'm not sure I would have embarked on the journey.

On most days of the week I start early, sometimes very early, and finish late. Fitting it all in without feeling exhausted is not an easy task. Especially as I also work on a Saturday.

Rakhee and me are holding a coffee morning to raise money for The Children's Trust, the charity we're running for.
There is also the opportunity to enter our Bake Off competition, and a raffle.
If you are in the surroundings and free on Wednesday March 25th between 10 and 12, do come and support  us.
If you want to enter a cake, or have a raffle prize, do let us know in advance.
It will take place at the North London Business Park, building 3.

And if you can't make it, there is always the option to sponsor us online on
http://uk.virginmoneygiving.com/team/RakheeandAnne
 

Half marathon coming up and more....

It's been a while since I updated last.

The class last week Tuesday actually was well timed. As I had missed out on my interval session, the class had sprint intervals as part of the workout.

Then Wednesday I did some real intervals. It's amazing how much lack of sleep affects your running.

Apart from training obviously, pre-run nutrition, fuel, hydration (before and during) and sleep are super important.

Saturday I had only a 75 minute run to do and Rachael asked me to really push hard.

Right now, with the tempo runs I'm doing on my long runs, I'm still far off the 5h30 I want to finish the marathon in.
It's more likely to be 6h30, which is really not what I want.

So pushing I went. The first few minutes in a run are always hard. So after 12 minutes I decided to take a short break, drink, eat a few bites, and walk 3 minutes. Which made me think I should push hard again for 12 minutes and walk 3, and keep going like that.

I managed a better pace. Still slightly slower than the pace I need for my 5h30 marathon.

This Sunday I am running the Hampton Court half marathon. I've done one half marathon before, and obviously would like to beat that time.
Let's see what happens on the day.... Here's hoping it stays dry. The weather forecast is quite mixed, so fingers crossed.

And today, I've seen my next months programme.
I was a little worried, but seemingly because of the lengths I've ran up to now, it's actually not that bad.

Most runs, I've done the distance before, so I can now really start working on pushing the pace. Which will give me much more confidence comes marathon day.

The short interval sessions with the sprints that I really enjoyed are gone now. And replaced by medium length tempo runs, so I can really push the pace.

Let's see what happens in the coming few months.

Today, I've baked my energy snacks for Sunday and the coming few weeks.
I don't like drinking energy drinks or gels, so these will do very nicely I think.

 

Fighting a Cold

The cold of the previous week meant I developed a cold.
I was determined for it not to let it go into the chest.

So, with a stuffed nose and head I decided I would take it easy this week, recover and be ready for the long run of 10 miles on Saturday.

On Friday I finally could breathe properly. Came Saturday I made sure I had some good food in me before the run, but also some snacks.

I baked some nuts and dates biscuits on Friday. Nearly had my house on fire when the greaseproof paper caught fire in the gas oven.

Together with Rakhee, we ran from New Barnet to East Finchley and back.
We needed a comfort break at the cinema in North Finchley and were very tempted to go in and watch a movie. But we didn't ;-)

Good hydration and nutrition proved super important. So that's a good lesson learned.

Like last week after the 8 mile run, my right calf muscle was quite achy and sore.
Luckily I have my appointment with Lucy Howe on Thursday, and I'm sure she'll find out what's going on.

Funnily enough, I was sure we had plenty of time for our run. However somehow I forgot about the warm up, and had organised to meet some friends for dinner at 7:15 in Borehamwood.
I managed to get home, jump in the shower, stretch while washing myself and drying myself and while drying my hair, and off we went.
It was great timing for the food, however, I would have liked a bit more time to allow for proper stretches.

This week didn't start as planned. With my broken down car this morning, I had to miss my run and running group.
Quite annoyed about it, but will make it up at some point this week.

Back to the gym tomorrow morning. Am looking forward to this mad class, but also to the stretch session.

 

10k race and second week of "real" marathon training

Last week, we had our 10k race in Hyde Park.
It was freezing cold!

Running in the morning is not the same as running mid day, which is what I've been doing so far. 

Two big lessons I learned from the race:
1. Warming up is even more important in the morning, when you haven't done much. Especially when it is so cold out there.

2. It's super important to be properly hydrated, and take some water with. When you run mid day, you already had quite a bit of liquid in you. If it's morning time you don't.

I got really thirsty about 30 minutes into the run. Normally I would go out without water when I go out for 1h.
Obviously that did slow me down. With cold muscles and no hydration, you can imagine that keeping on running wasn't easy.

I knew there was water at 5k, so I walked a bit of the remainder until Richard was waiting with the camera just before the 5k mark. He had a small bottle of water on him, which was really useful.

Still even though the walking along the way, I still managed to finish the race in 1h20, which was the goal.

Since then, the weeks training has continued with strength training sessions, mobility work and some short intervals. 

Yesterday we had an 8mile run on the cards.
It was sleeting, rainy and windy.
But it had to be done.

Rakhee and me went out as agreed. It was really hard. Probably the hardest run so far. Not just because of the distance, but also because of the conditions.

And, another lesson learned: always eat a good meal of protein and carbs before going out.
My protein smoothie seems to be going down well.
I only had a roll and that was totally not enough. And I had nothing with me except for some water.
Lesson learned!

It's all a learning process at the moment. 

The "Real Training" has started

As I mentioned last time, the "real training" has started this week.

My programme was revealed last week Friday by Rachael.
It is definitely a step up when it comes to days of training and total running distance.

The short intervals and long interval sessions are quite similar, although they obviously vary from week to week.
Some longer, some shorter.

I can go to my crazy class followed by a half hour stretch class.

The second strength and conditioning session is now much much harder as we're going for heavy weights now.

And on top of the long run, which now goes up by 2 miles each week, I have an extra 2 mile run session this month.
I felt I needed that to try and get faster.

So this week has been busy. Today is a rest day as tomorrow I have my 10k race in Hyde Park.

Last week, I went out with Rakhee for an 8k run, and we agreed we could have gone a little faster all along the way.
So that's what we're going to try and do tomorrow. Run a little faster and see what happens.

I also had another session with Lucy. I actually realised that it's the first time I've been running that my knees hadn't been sore.

In my previous running attempts, I always had to tape my knees, and they ended up being really sore.
Since being treated by her regularly, I had no need for any of it.

I promised her I would up my water intake. At the moment, I went up from 1l to 1.4l, but I need to get to 2l without counting my herbal teas.
Tricky, but it has to be done, as it important for my joints, my muscles, my focus, and obviously many other things.

SO let's see what happens tomorrow. It will be cold, but at least it will be sunny.

Seemingly the "real" training starts next week!

On Monday, it will be only 14 full weeks till marathon day, and I've been told by Rachael that as of next week, the "real" training starts...

So the question is, what have I been doing until now.

Well, as a non-runner really, it was all about getting used to run regularly, getting stronger and fitter.
But also, get to a point where I don't dislike running.

Yes, you heard it right. In the past, I went out and hated it. If you ask me how I feel about my half marathon I did in Edinburgh, I will always say that I hated every minute of it, and all the time I was running I was wondering why I even entered in the first place.

So hopefully now, that I don't dislike running as much, I hope I will be able to enjoy the next 14 weeks.

I have 2 races planned until the big day. My first 10k will be on Sunday Jan 25th, and my half marathon on February 22nd.
I'm a little apprehensive about the half, as it's quite soon. I know that as per normal programme, I could have done it a week or two later, but I couldn't find any that was convenient and not a long way away or super expensive.

I also know that until the half, I don't have any free Sundays due to birthdays, family visits, golf competitions, etc.
So the long runs will have to happen on a work day, which doesn't make it easier.

So serious things are coming up.

Now going back to my last update, I haven't done a huge amount of running. 

Last Sunday I went to a running workshop organised by Rachel. It was a long day, getting up at 5ish to get to Manchester for 10am.
But it was worthwhile.
I even managed to say that after the marathon, I am retiring.....
No seriously, after the marathon I want to focus on my 5k speed.

We learned a hell of a lot about the POSE running technique and why it's so good so as to avoid injury.
We did lots of drills, and even had to do quite a bit of running!
Looking forward to get the video analysis of the before and after.

But we also learned why strength training while training is so important as well as stretching.

On Tuesday I went to an exercise class, which was followed by a 30min stretch class. I have to say, it was a fabulous class, and I felt amazing afterwards. Working on mobility is super important.

And when I did my short interval session yesterday, my legs were totally fine. It was the breathing that was tough. Definitely going back for more of that class next week!

Curious to see what my next months plan will look like. But first, there is one more strength session planned for today, some long intervals for Friday, and a long tempo run on Saturday.