Tag Archives: New York Marathon

End of Week 7 – 43 miles!!

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After last week’s somewhat epic blog (sorry about that :)) I promised to do a shorter one this week. So let’s stick to the running, mainly………

This week’s running was very notable for two reasons. Firstly it was the longest week’s running ever, at 43 miles in total, culminating in the longest run of my life at 20 miles. Secondly, and much more enjoyably, as it was the last week of the summer holidays for Melanie, she said she’d come over in the week and join me for the midweek runs too. So that was great!

The midweek runs this week weren’t too bad overall. The first one was 6 miles incorporating 11 lots of 30 second hill sprints. Melanie hadn’t got over to Abingdon for this one, and she didn’t fancy the hills (I think there may have been a longer, better, more justifiable excuse but in any case she didn’t do them :O) so I was actually on my own for those. They felt fine, and actually were helped by the fact that the temperature this week was considerably cooler than the previous week’s heatwave, which saw the hottest ever August Bank Holiday weekend in the UK (33 degrees C).

Wednesday saw an easy run of 6 miles. Again the air was a bit cooler, and the first signs of Autumn are in the air. The 9:45 pace is relaxing I find (mainly), even at 6am in the morning (!), and we both did the run just fine, although it was slightly harder than it might have been as we maybe had one or two (or was it three or four!) glasses of wine the night before. On the Thursday I thought it was going to be really tough. It called for four miles at 7:30 pace with two minute rests in between, as part of a 7 mile run.

I hadn’t actually thought I could run four lots of 7:30 miles (8 is normally round about my sustainable top speed), but it felt good and so I stayed with it. I got the first one done in about 7:45, and the others at similar pace, bar the last one, which was bang on 7:30. Melanie struggled a little bit, just not feeling at the top of her game, and did around 8:15 for the first three, but then had a great last mile at about 7:45.

It’s funny how some days you are on it, and some days you aren’t, and that’s all part of training and taking the good with the not so good.

At the weekend we both went back over to Cambridge for the weekend’s main event, the 20 miler!! Well we actually went to Cambridge just be in Cambridge really, but anyway, my mind was definitely occupied with whether I could get to do 20 miles or not! On Saturday, the prelude was just a gentle four miler, and then it was time for pasta and a restful night before Sunday morning.

20 miles is a definite barrier, physically and psychologically, and so many running tales I’ve seen talk about ‘the wall’ at 20 miles. As I’d never faced the wall (my longest run being up until three weeks ago a half marathon) this was very much untried territory for me. Not so for Melanie – she’s done four marathons before, and with all of the training for those is a (relatively speaking, before she kicks me under the table!) veteran at these things – certainly compared to me. It was thus interesting that the day before she was suggesting to me that maybe we should just do 16 and not 20! That told me that not only was I not looking forward to 20, she was dreading it!!

On Sunday morning the weather was simply stunning, not a cloud in the sky, a nice cooling breeze, and the temperature at about 17 degrees C. We ran into and out of Cambridge via Stapleford and Grantchester, a lovely route much like last Sundays (just longer of course). Also the run was at a slow (9:55) pace. It went great, and whilst I couldn’t say that I could have run much further by the time we finished (and despite nearly twisting my ankle on a kerb due to not paying attention towards the end), it was actually better than I expected. I felt the distance of the week’s running in my legs at about mile 10, but they got no worse.

Melanie was fine too, and although 20 miles (especially when it takes you 3 hours and 18 minutes to complete) is undoubtedly a monster distance, we’ve both trained hard and followed the programme so far pretty diligently (ok – to the absolute letter for me :)) and so there’s no reason why we couldn’t or shouldn’t have got through it.

So after 7 weeks of the programme (16 weeks in all), we’ve done 255 miles out of 599 training miles in total. I’m really pleased with how it is all going at this point, and although you can never rest on your laurels or take things for granted, I now believe that this thing is at least doable. On the flipside of that, I know that September is going to be really hard – we will get though 190 miles this month alone!

The very best thing about September though comes this coming weekend. It is The Great North Run. The GNR is the biggest (at 57,000 runners) half marathon in the world, but of course (to anyone who knows me) is massively special to me for much more significant reasons than that. Finishing in my home town (although I haven’t lived there in more than thirty five years) of South Shields, the GNR is a homecoming for me, and is uniquely special. It has everything – it starts near where I finished my schooling, runs past the place of my birth, where my grandparents and parents grew up, and has so many amazing sights, like the Tyne Bridge, and running along the Coast Road with wonderful views of the beaches and the sea, and the Red Arrows performing during and after the event. It gives me a headrush just thinking about it, and being there and taking part is almost totally overwhelming. The event is also really about memories of my Dad.

Every year, wherever I was (it has been held since 1981) my Dad used to ring me on the day of the run and tell me to look out for him on the TV – as the run went past more or less the street where I grew up, and he used to go and stand on the corner to watch everyone come past. He was always a big fan of the event; of Brendan Foster (who founded it all those years ago); and of the passion and pride that it brings to the people of the North East. I share every one of his sentiments and feelings, and more so now since he passed on five years ago. It will be incredibly emotional to run past the bottom of my street and look out into the crowd and see him not standing there. And perhaps he will be – as I pass the junction of the Temple Park Road I’ll have a tear in my eye as I look over in the direction of where he would be.

Next Sunday I’m so pleased that Melanie is coming up to do the GNR with me too. It is all part of the training programme really, and so we aren’t trying for times, but just to enjoy everything that it brings. She’s done the run twice like me, but is our first time together. More nostalgia then this time next week……Dad, here’s to you :).

The Red Arrows over the Tyne Bridge during the GNR.

Where do I start?

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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…….