So as an update to my post last week, I am still awaiting confirmation of whether the Marathon is happening or not. It is 100% happening in my mind, and my desire to do it increases almost hourly, but as I’m waiting for confirmation from someone else as to whether they are doing it too, I’m in limbo, a bit. That’s frustrating (and that’s possibly the understatement of the century!) but it is what it is, and it will be what it will be.

A bit of light bedtime reading….

I am in the meantime very indebted to the various people I am getting good advice from. It’s great to get such encouragement and people telling you how incredible they find it that you are even entertaining the idea. Maybe they find it incredible that I am contemplating it at all, who knows, but it is all positive so far :).

I’ve also had some great help from a work colleague, Esther, with whom I run with at lunchtimes at work from time to time. Esther has done a great job of encouraging other people in our office to get from the couch to do a half-marathon, and sacrifices a lot of time and her own running time to do so. That’s really as inspirational as it is admirable, and she is also already helping my journey too. Yesterday she brought into the office a veritable library of books for me to borrow, dealing with almost every aspect of running, from the physical to the theoretical, the down and dirty to the esoteric. and as I have a thirst for knowledge I could be buried in books for some time……….:)

I cannot however bury myself in theory for too long. While it is important, there is nothing to beat getting out there. Strava tells me that I have run 268 miles this year so far, which is a (not bad for me) 14 miles a week on average. I’m currently (the last two or three weeks) at about 20 miles a week, which whilst a decent base, is nowhere close to what I will need to be running in order to get myself over the finish line.

The tale of the tape as at 14th May 2019…

Most training plans I have seen seem to go up to around 50 miles a week, and that is a massive (and daunting) amount to say the least. On top of the effort to do the miles themselves, is the time. That is about 9 hours of running, plus the faffing and changing, showering and what have you, so you can probably double that. So 80 hours plus a month, over 4 and a half months (most training programmes are 16 – 18 weeks) just to do the training. Gulp!

But even before that, I have to keep up my base fitness, keep doing at least the 20 miles a week, and then choose which plan to stick to. I have downloaded 5 so far, and while they are broadly similar, they differ by number of days, amount of miles, how hard you go, what you supplement your long runs with etc. I want to get the right balance between motivational, and doable, without being too taxing. I will stick to any training programme as long as it isn’t too hard, as if it is I will not succeed. I’m at the point where I now for the first time in my life am starting to actually enjoy running, and I don’t want to take the fun away altogether. Having said that, I know the next few months will be tough, very tough at times and I have to make sacrifices, but that’s all good – I am up for it completely.

So for now, let’s be patient (hard for me, as this is all as massive as it is massively exciting), and hopefully get my news through and my booking made. Then the hard work starts. Watch this space…….