Marathon Hurdle Number 3 - Done and Dusted! Woo hooooo! xxx

Who would have thought that running round an athletics track could be so rewarding?

Well, today, 15th July should have been marathon number 3 but my last minute decision to change the event to an endurance track run on Thursday instead was SO the right move.  If nothing else, having the freedom to lay in bed today having already completed a marathon this week felt REALLY good!  Although, my calves may have a different opinion of what 'really good' feels like for they, most certainly do not feel 'really good'.

However, my marathon number 3 of the year is now complete!  As of today, I have now ran for 29 of my scheduled 48 weeks and completed 3 of my marathons.  That's me being well and truly past the half way mark!  Woo hoo!

As planned a couple of weeks back, I'd made the decision to run on Thursday.  Very low key in many respects as it was me running during my school's annual sports festival.  Running round and round (and round and round) the West Suffolk athletics track.  As part of the festival's opening ceremony, my challenge for the day was announced to the students.  Where I have been casually raising sponsorship for Macmillan Cancer Support, I'd chosen that any funds raised that day would donated to Sports for Rwanda, in line with the basis on which our sports festivals are built.

The set up for the day is that the opening ceremony finishes at 10.20am whereby the 'games' begin which, with the lunch, the games continue until nearly 2.40.  Just in time for the closing ceremony.  Given that our closing ceremony included the welcoming of a couple of the Rwandan Olympic athletes, it was to be quite a big deal.  My running therefore was limited to a little over 4 hours. 

If the truth be known, this suited me to the very core!  As per my last updates, the past 6 or so weeks have been really tough in terms of maintaining the training and my recovery between runs (I wholly accept that running 21 miles TOO fast only 18 days after Edinburgh was more than a bit foolish... Oh, the beauty of hindsight).  With this in mind, anything I achieved on Thursday was going to be less than anything I am truly capable of and would, therefore, be an achievement in its own right.  I was set on completing a marathon but with the time allowance being a lot less than originally anticipated, I wasn't going to complete much more... although once I'd set off, I was still hoping that I could push for 120 laps (30 miles).

So, my first lap started at 10:25am, anti-clockwise around the track.  Before the end of my first lap, a sixth former joined me and the company began.  Sometimes I was joined by only 2-3 others (students and staff), others by entire tutor groups and more... I think (although I could have been slightly delirious) that there was in excess of 100 students/staff with me at one point.  I am especially grateful to Simon (teacher) who ran with me throughout what could have been a very lonely and quiet lunch hour; to Ali (teacher) who pushed himself harder than he had in years and completed 10 miles with me; to Brian (teacher)who has over the past few years lost 7 stone in weight and managed the last 9 miles with me.  More than this however, the many laps run by staff and students on and off.  Joe (Year 12) who also kept me company over lunch and beyond with nearly 10 miles of company and the Year 11 lads (Oli and Jordan) who completed the last 8 miles with me.  Over and above this was the overwhelming support by the many students and staff who kept me focused and positive with their many words of encouragement and cheers throughout the entire day.  The weather was far too hot for my liking (on the ONLY day of sunshine this week, it happened to be sun-burning hot - this transpires to be the day THE day that I ran a marathon).

I was slow, really slow and my calves hurt, really hurt!  My 'clicker-counter' for each lap became my new best friend.  Initially I counted in 20's up until 60 laps in.  I then counted to 70, to 80, to 85, to 90, to 92 and then stayed in 2's from thereon in.  I knew that 104 laps was 26 miles and once I'd reached 85 laps, I was just working towards the marathon or rather 105 laps to give me those important extra few hundred metres.

Once I'd reached 100 laps, it suddenly all felt easier.  Those last few laps seemed to fly by and I suspect that my mental state released chemicals that helped to kill the pain!  One or our students who had been selected as a torchbearer ran the last lap with me (this was meant to be the 105th lap) but being that I was part of a school event, things could never go quite to plan and at the end of this lap, the Year 6 Primary School dance was well underway... I was then told to run around again (actually, I think I was asked to stop but I didn't cotton on to the waving by other members of staff until too late) and then ran another lap... this felt amazingly easy!  So, I finished after 106 laps or 26.5miles.  Around 4hr 15 mins of very slow running but I loved it, really loved it.  (Apart from the times where it felt really hard and I kept snivelling to myself.  Oh, and the time that my left calf seemed to cramp up.  And the time that I bent down to get my sports drink and felt a sharp pain in my back when standing up again.)

I'd originally intended to change direction at various points throughout the day but I can't bear running clockwise around the track.  Psychologically, stopping to do an about turn was more than what I could handle.  This was absolutely fine on the day but my goodness, I felt the inner/outer abs on my left hand side come Friday!

So today, my abs feel fine.  My quads and hamstrings are amazingly fine but my calves are stinging like you wouldn't believe.  A gentle swim yesterday, a gentle walk today and lots of sleep has and continues to do me the power of good. 

Next steps - another week or so without any real runs and then a sensible training plan to build me up to Wolverhampton which is 7 weeks from now.  I think I'll walk, swim and use the rower over the next few days although my training this week is severely limited on the basis that I'm working, hosting tea-parties and have the girls everyday/night with the exception of Thursday.  Me, being me, thinks that this constraint is probably a good thing right now.  Recovery most certainly aides improved results... advice I really need to pay heed to!

So, 19 weeks to go and Wolverhampton is my next hurdle on the horizon.  Bring it on.  :o)

Heat - Eugh and Last Minute Amendments!

Dilemmas, decisions and discipline needed!

Please excuse the fact that I didn't post an update last night but a faulty laptop and post-weekend away catch up won!

Anyway, it has now been 15 days since my last update and although my legs are beginning to recover nicely, my ability to run fast (by my standards) seems to have gone by the way side.  If I'm truly honest, this is definitely attributable to the fact that my work/family/social life balance have been winning over the training where motivation is concerned.  The training has been happening - just somewhat half-heartedly at times.  I'm still awaiting a much needed massage which I'm hoping is going to happen this week although, my legs feel infinitely better than was the case a fortnight ago.   I think I need to be really disciplined over the next couple of weeks!

SO, I don't have any major excuse for not training and have been trying to stick to some sort of training plan that would both enable my legs to recover and also help to prepare me for my next marathon venture.  In my last post, I said that I would try to spend a week mixing up other cardio-vascular routines with running which actually worked quite well.  Over a period of 5 training sessions, I mixed running with using the step-machine.  So ample time was given to training but running was limited to between 5k and 10km per session:

Monday 18th June - Interval training - 10km treadmill run plus 40 minutes of step machine
Weds 20th - 5 mile run
Thursday 21st - 6 mile run after work plus 40 minutes of step machine
Friday - 10km broken into a 4 mile, 6am session and a 2.25 mile jog after work
Sunday - 5km hill running (on the road) in Derbyshire.  This REALLY hurt but that wasn't down to tired legs, or pushing it too hard but more a case of Southern Jessie tackling the hills.  In total- fractionally under 27 miles.  Nowhere near enough to bank a reasonable marathon time but very well needed plenty of cardio-vascular endurance in there too.

Last week was disappointing in terms of getting the miles in but the effort was there - although the heat wasn't my friend.
A good start to training with 8 comfortable miles on Tuesday.  What was meant to be 18 long miles after work on Thursday (knowing that I was away at the weekend) was a struggle.  I hadn't arranged for a running partner/bike support so figured that the headphones, treadmill and the tv was a sad but acceptable alternative.  That seemed like a good idea until the lack of air-conditioning, lots of bodies and a very hot gym got in the way.  So nigh on 2 hours later, I'd managed plenty of exercise but only around 8 miles of actual running.  So physically hot, that I constantly moved between power walking (sub 12 minute miling), the step machine and actual running (8 minute miling).  To compensate for this, I ran 11 miles from my sister's house on Friday which was a slow, training run.  Having worked quite hard the day before, I couldn't have been much quicker anyway and it was intended to be a training run anyway.    The girls rode their bikes for a short while so that I could jog next to them on Sunday.  In total, around 29 miles this week which is still 5 or so miles fewer than I had planned for.

This brings the first dilemma - I really want to get another slightly longer session in prior to the next marathon but don't want to wait until the weekend as the event is only a week or so away now.  With this in mind, my schedule for the week:

Monday - STRAIGHT after work, 12 miles (ideally more if time permits before collecting the girls)
Tuesday - camping with the school but may be able to squeeze 10km in
Weds - 4 early morning miles, ideally
Thursday - Rest
Friday - 6 miles
Saturday - rest PLUS the Olympic Torch relay passes through Bury St Edmunds (very excited)
Sunday - 6 miles... I hope!

This also leads me to my second dilemma.  I have been working towards my marathon event number 3 of the year.  Fairlands Valley marathon event in Stevenage on 15th July.  This was always going to be difficult event as it's cross-country (which is ok, just a bit daunting) but is also the day after a wedding - my head won't want to know.  I've also just figured out that through a careless lack of planning on my part, I skipped the small print stating that it's not a properly marshalled event and is a bit of an orienteering challenge for the vast majority of the marathon distance (slightly longer than a marathon at 26.4 miles, IF I don't get lost).  This 'orienteering' I'm not up for when running by myself with only a small field of competitors... I'm going to have some experience of this in my ultra-race at the end of the year but not to the extent of this marathon.  That's the sort of thing I'd rather do with a large group of runners and make it a day of fun, just for the sake of it.  Having said that, with Summer being the season of shorter distances, there aren't many local marathons in the offing (plenty abroad - perhaps I should have been more willing to spend out on yet another weekend away and planned for it accordingly).  So, what to do, what to do? 

The decision:  As a teacher, my school holds an awesome 'sports day' every year, or rather a sports festival.  As part of that, the lovely Zoe has organised a staff running-relay.  A relay that will see a constant flow of teachers/support staff running around the West Suffolk Athletics track for the full 5.5 hours of the sports day, all in a relay, each running from 5 minutes upwards (most running for approximately 20-30 minutes), all in aid of Sports for Rwanda/Sports Relief.  As an alternative to an orienteering marathon that I'm really not brave enough to run, I am going to run a longer than planned for marathon for the full 5 and a half hours to support the staff in their relay and as a constant challenge for me.  Each lap of the track being 400 metres (1/4 mile) for a full day.  I have no idea how this will pan out for me.  The terrain will be easy (flat, track).  The support will be amazing (900 students and staff in the vicinity plus another member of staff on the track lapping me throughout the day, I hope).  The preparation has been going.... ok.... The only things against me are the lack of SERIOUS distances over the past 3-4 weeks, my legs don't feel as strong as they perhaps should, the weather (in whatever form that may be) and the sheer endurance of pure track running for such a long period of time (I've estimated that I could probably complete between 120-132 laps of the track or 30-33 miles). 

Now that I've made the executive decision for this to be the case (assuming that the weather doesn't defer the sports day until the following week), I'm hugely excited about the whole thing... a real sense of trepidation too but excited all the same.

I just now need to ensure that I train tonight, ease up properly, eat and drink properly over the next couple of weeks and then, well, act like Forrest and run!