So, January.
The official start of London Marathon training.
I had already decided that given the issues I had with road marathons before, that I would concentrate on:
The official start of London Marathon training.
I had already decided that given the issues I had with road marathons before, that I would concentrate on:
A. getting to the start line in good shape and in one piece, and
B. getting to the finish line in good shape and in one piece!
A decent finish time was to take a back seat, and in my case as I am not a quick runner, a decent finish time would mean under 5 hours. If this happened it would be a bonus but I would not obsess over it.
In addition I also decided that I would take better notice of what my own body was telling me, and although I was following a training plan (I find it easier to do that than to think what I should be doing), I would make allowances for feeling tired, having an off day, having an especially good day etc and so hopefully avoid injury such as I got in the build up to Paris partially caused I think by sticking to a training plan too rigidly.
A decent finish time was to take a back seat, and in my case as I am not a quick runner, a decent finish time would mean under 5 hours. If this happened it would be a bonus but I would not obsess over it.
In addition I also decided that I would take better notice of what my own body was telling me, and although I was following a training plan (I find it easier to do that than to think what I should be doing), I would make allowances for feeling tired, having an off day, having an especially good day etc and so hopefully avoid injury such as I got in the build up to Paris partially caused I think by sticking to a training plan too rigidly.
Of course also in January 2 new things in my life were announced.
One was of course the enormousness of the official announcement of Grandparentness, which is extremely exciting, I do hope I can be a good one. More about that later!
And the other was the start of Poole junior parkrun.
Jenny had been working on starting a junior parkrun for some time and the first event happened on January 3rd. A 2km course for 4-14 year olds in Poole park on Sundays, and just like the main parkrun, at 9am.
One was of course the enormousness of the official announcement of Grandparentness, which is extremely exciting, I do hope I can be a good one. More about that later!
And the other was the start of Poole junior parkrun.
Jenny had been working on starting a junior parkrun for some time and the first event happened on January 3rd. A 2km course for 4-14 year olds in Poole park on Sundays, and just like the main parkrun, at 9am.
I don't remember If this was the first one but there were 62 juniors running their little hearts out on the first day. I can really recommend volunteering at a junior parkrun, it is so much more rewarding even than the normal 5km version.
Oh and nearly forgot, I also started a 365 day (which turned into a 366 day when i realised it was leap year this year) photo a day blog. Its proving more difficult than I thought but if you would like a look its here
http://deniseday366.blogspot.co.uk/
Anyway back to training, the plan I was following was one by Martin Yelling, available online, a lot of his training plans involve time rather than distance, except for the really long runs and I do like those as they make allowances for the times that you are feeling a bit off, you can do a bit less miles in the time. Or if you are feeling really good you can end up doing slightly more!
January's plan consisted of mainly 1 interval run a week, 3 or 4 shortish runs of up to an hour, and a longer run. Starting with a 6 mile, then an 8 mile, then an 11 mile which should have been 10 but 4 of us decided to do a run across Black Hill in Bere Regis which i had done before, and there seemed to be more of it than I remembered. Also poor Max had flashbacks to a time in the past when he disappeared under water as thanks to the rain one of the fields we had to go across looked like this
Yes although Daisy thought it was amazing and bounced like a gazelle through the water, Max decided he was having none of it "for goodness sake mum you cant see the bottom!" and stood his ground, so Neil had to carry him across!
Talking of the weather we seemed to have been through the mill with it in January, my training log records mud, torrential rain, cold, ice, wind, water, and more mud again. Testing to be sure.
The last longish run of the month was back down to an 8 mile but as the heath tracks had been chewed up by the Caterpillar tracks of 'heath maintenance' vehicles, we decided to run 8 miles of the Larmer Tree half route, firstly because Jenny would be running it in March and also because Kevin wanted us to check out some of the course as it had to be changed from last year. So from 4 go mad in Dorset, we were 4 go mad in Wiltshire!
No races in January which was a nice rest, although I did add another interesting one to the Calendar. The Snowdonia Trail marathon.
They have a road one which goes around Snowdon but this one goes over the top! Here is the route and profile.
Talking of the weather we seemed to have been through the mill with it in January, my training log records mud, torrential rain, cold, ice, wind, water, and more mud again. Testing to be sure.
The last longish run of the month was back down to an 8 mile but as the heath tracks had been chewed up by the Caterpillar tracks of 'heath maintenance' vehicles, we decided to run 8 miles of the Larmer Tree half route, firstly because Jenny would be running it in March and also because Kevin wanted us to check out some of the course as it had to be changed from last year. So from 4 go mad in Dorset, we were 4 go mad in Wiltshire!
No races in January which was a nice rest, although I did add another interesting one to the Calendar. The Snowdonia Trail marathon.
They have a road one which goes around Snowdon but this one goes over the top! Here is the route and profile.
 |
| looks a tad hilly! |
Looks a bit tricky doesn't it? Why am I tackling this as well as the Coniston one this year? well I have it in my head that I would like to make at least one attempt on the Mont Blanc Marathon in the next couple of years and so i figured I needed the mountain practice!
See you in February's post.
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