2 weeks to go

Training this week hasn't gone to plan, with hospital visits, Weddings and my mum arriving for a holiday from Lancashire. My mileage has taken the hit as I've only managed 2 sessions this week. This has been part of the learning curve. I must learn to stick to the plan unless its a family emergency. On a plus side, Im loving my current trainers, which are Saucony Fast twitch 5's. These are great road shoes for Over pronators 

Saucony

Change of Plan

I had a phone call this week from the organiser of the 12hr Endurance challenge at the Ford Test track.

She told me that unfortunately they have had to cancel the event as " only four nutters have signed up"

Am I really a nutter???

I am still running for 12 hours on the 29th June 2013. I just need to find a new venue.

I will keep you updated!!!

So you can still have a guess how far I'm going to travel and maybe win some cash. See Paula Lambert, Helen Pybus, Linda Drew, Mel Young, Andrea Hoskins, Marcin, and Debbie le Grice to place your guess. Thanks again guys and gals for your help.

Fitness tip# 2    Water is very important when training. Drink plenty because you may sweat and a water loss equal to 2% of your body weight, will mean a 20% loss in your Aerobic capacity. Hydration

Diary of a Long Distance Runner

Week 2

Tuesday 26th March 2013   6 miles steady early morning run. Dry, but cold.

Saturday 30th March 2013 18 miles, steady run, very cold and snowy in places. Happy with how my feet are feeling at the end, just need my legs to feel the same.

2 weeks to go until Giving site goes live.

3 weeks to go

This week has been the real start to my training, and in lots of ways it's been like when I first started running. I have been running in five finger barefoot shoes for the last 2 years and absolutely love them. I've had no injuries or sore glutes ( bum muscles) just tight calves. I've had some great advice from Matt Mahoney, who runs with the British Ultra-marathon team ( thanks Matt). One piece of advice I got, was that I needed to go back to normal road shoes as I will need to be carrying weight and barefoot shoes wouldn't offer me any support from the hot Sahara desert.

Im an over pronator, so I am now running in Saucony Fasttwitch 5 shoes. This week has seen the return of the dreaded black toe nail

                                                             Runners black toe nails

Fitness tip #1      Make sure your footwear and clothing are suitable for the running you are doing. This may take some trial and error, but will be worth it in the long run (s'cuse the pun).

With just over 2 years to go, I'm going to start a diary of my journey from my current level of running  to that of a runner capable of running the Marathon de Sable.

If you are reading this and it inspires you to take up running, please follow me on my journey and hopefully the experiences that I encounter will help you to achieve your goals.

Diary of a Long distance runner

Week 1

Monday 18th March 2013     6 mile steady run with Paula, all road, weather cold but dry. Trying hard to keep at a constant pace.

Paula

Wednesday 20th March 2013  10 mile steady run on my own, all road, very windy and cold with a snow fall half way round. managed a constant pace.

Saturday 23rd March 2013  17miles all on concrete. cold, windy with a blast of snow at 7 miles. This needed some switching off in my brain to get round, and some good music.

The weather is freeeeeezing and  is not ideal at the moment, Paula is feeling especially demotivated, when it comes to running. So please please please if you see her or me can you sponsor Paula for the Great North Run in September. This will jump start her back on track.

Speaking of Sponsorship.........      3 weeks to go!!!!! until my Giving site goes live. Watch this space

Great start to fundraising- Thank you

I'm back to running in normal trainers, which has been abit strange after being in five fingers for two years.  I did 13 miles yesterday and my legs and feet feel fine.

The guesses for my 12 hr endurance run challenge are coming in thick and fast. I'm on my 3rd sheet already. There has been some great attempts at figuring out how many miles I will go and how many toilet stops I will make. Some people seem to think I'm super human and have more faith in my PEANUT bladder than I do. The lowest guess so far is 24 miles and 2 toilet stops, the highest is 250 miles (lol) and 12 toilet stops. It's quite funny listening to people trying to calculate how far I will run based on previous times I have run, what I plan to wear, level of fitness etc. of course I'm confident that my fitness will change as the event gets closer. In Walberswick this week I was sat with 6 people discussing how many times I might need to 'go' and I'd never even met 2 of them before, they were old enough to be my parents.

For those reading this, that haven't a clue what I'm talking about. This my first challenge.
On the 29th June 2013, I'm going to run round Fords only Uk test track in Basildon. I will start running at 8am and stop at 8pm. Yes you read right, it is a 12 hour challenge.
That's my challenge, and your challenge  if you want to win 20% of the money collected for this event, you will need to guess how far I will go in the 12 hours, and you will also need to guess how many toilet breaks that me and my peanut bladder will take, incase of a tie break situation.
A guess will cost you £2  or 2 guesses for £3, with 80% going to Mencap and 20% going to the winning person. You can have as many tries as you like.

The more guesses made, the bigger the prize fund, go on, you know it makes sense

There are a number of people including me that you can approach to make your guess or multiple guesses. 

My gorgeous girlfriend Paula Lambert

Helen Pybus

Linda Drew 

Andrea Hoskins

Jon Regester

Mel Young

I would like to say  a big thank you to those listed

 above, for their help with this

Whilst I'm on the subject of thank you,s. I would like to thank Paula for her ongoing support and because she is going to participate in the GREAT NORTH RUN to raise more cash for Mencap. If you see her please please please sponsor her.

Running and fitness I'm not bad at. Computers, writing, media, I'm rubbish at. Thank you to Claire whittenbury for help with that stuff. I really should have gone to school