Marc’s Marvelous Marathon Plan!

Stats

Original Weight: (Jan 1st) 15st 7lbs / 217lbs / 98.4kg
Weigh-in (Jan 29th) 15st 5lbs / 215lbs / 97.5kg
Gain/Loss In Total: -2lbs / 0.9kgs

In Which, With 9 Weeks To Go, I Sort Out A Training Plan

As you can see from my weigh in, I’ve put a few lbs back on! That’s in the wrong direction! Ah well, I was more than expecting it. I had an operation to take out a wisdom tooth on Friday and then had the following three days off of work not doing much apart from watching TV and feeling sorry for myself. Also, the Royal Rumble was on on Sunday night so watched that and drank too much beer which probably accounts for the weight gain by itself!

Back to it now though, and in a big way!

Finally (FINALLY!) I wrote up my training schedule for the Blackpool Marathon at the start of April. That’s right, the one just over 9 weeks away! I had a look at a few 12 week and 16 week training plans, and most of them build up to a long run a few weeks before the marathon of 20miles or so. As I’m planning on walking each water station (every mile-ish) I’m not that bothered about being able to run 26.2 miles in one go, I’ll save that for the October marathon where hopefully I’m not hindered by Snow/Flu/Operations.

People manage to finish marathons in well under 4 hours using the ‘walking through water stations’ method so I don’t see any reason why I can’t use it to finish in under 5 hours. That’s my target for Blackpool, with my ‘hope against hope’ target being under 4 1/2 hours. (I’m saving the Sub 4 hour run for October too!) The longest training run I’ll be doing will be 18 miles, and that’s gonna be a mixture of walking and running.

Not sure how well it’ll turn out in pictures, but I wrote a key on the right of the first pic. So on Sun 3rd March where it says W2W, R-LRH, that means ‘Walk To Work’ and ‘Run Longer Route Home.’ Makes sense to me, but I came up with it all so good luck.

Also, finally found some hi-viz tape to put on my Rucksack for the run/bike home at night! (H for Hemingway!)

Hope everyone else has had a good January and stuck to your resolutions (like I… err… didn’t.)

Next run is Mad Dog 10k in Southport on 10th February.

Faster Than A Speeding Bullet!

Stats

Original Weight: (Jan 1st) 15st 7lbs / 217lbs / 98.4kg
Weigh-in (Jan 22nd) 15st 1lbs / 211lbs / 95.7kg
Gain/Loss Total: -6lbs / 1.8kgs

Day 24 of 365 – Still Little Progress…!

Another week gone, another week of very little exercise. ‘Why is that,’ You ask. Go on then. Ask. Please?

I’ll tell you why that is!

Stoopid British Weather, that’s why!

I’ve been off of work taking holiday days for the past two weeks and for the past week there’s been A LOT of snow. If I’d’ve been working this week and it’d snowed this much, I’d still have walked to work and/or home from work at least once a day. As it is, when you have time off of work and it starts snowing heavily, you don’t really feel like venturing out for a three mile walk or run!

(Another thing that stops me from going outside in the freezing cold snow is that I own a Playstation3.)

It’s not been a complete washout however, as I finally got around to setting up my turbo trainer in the summerhouse!

Instragrammed the crap out of this pic!

Also, I finally got around to joining the gym (after getting stuck on Assassin’s Creed III)

My induction is on Monday afternoon to test general fitness and to give me a plan to work towards. I wish it were sooner, but tomorrow I’m off to the hospital to be put to sleep so that they can remove a wisdom tooth without me trying to punch then in the eye. (Which wouldn’t be wise at all!)

This means that I’ll be recording my 2nd DNS as have been advised not to do any exercise for three days after my op. Pah!

WHOOOOOOOSH!

Yesterday was my first day back at work, and so I decided to get some miles in and walk down through the ice and snow. I never knew I could walk so fast.

It turns out that instead of walking 3.5 miles to work at a normal walking speed (slightly slower, due to snow and ice) I ended up walking a little over 350 miles in an hour. As you can see, I reached a top speed of 25818 mph. Not bad to say I hadn’t done much exercise lately!

It was a few minutes before I figured out my mistake:

There it is! As I’m sure you can see, instead of walking to work, I accidentally ran to London. Silly me! At least I was there and back in an hour, so wasn’t late for work.

I wasn’t even tired afterwards!

Should I Leave These Stats….

No, obviously not. I mean, it’d help a lot with the 2013 mile target, but it wouldn’t be right. Should I… No. I’ve edited them to reflect the actual distance, and decided to not use Sports Tracker anymore. I’m now using ‘Nexercise’ again, and they even give you little medals for doing exercise on certain days, or certain times.

GU

Does anyone use GU? I’ve been looking into Marathon nutrition and the name GU keeps popping up. On their website they do a sample box of different flavours and products for £20.00 so might give it a GU!

My next 10k is now the Mad Dog 10k in Southport on 10th Feb.

Not Much Progress Since Last Week

Stats
Weigh-in (Jan 15th) 15st 3lbs / 213lbs / 96.6kg
Gain/Loss Total: -4lbs / 1.8kgs

In Which Not A Lot Of Exercise Happens

I’m not updating my mileage this week, as it’ll depress me. I’ll be as depressed as a dwarf at Disneyland. (Because they’re too short for rides, not because they’re overworked or anything…)

I’ve just been too too busy! I’m in the middle if two weeks off of work, but for the first few days we’ve been busy fitting lights, fixing garden sheds, and pulling up floor boards in the attic to get out for a run or anything. (The summerhouse has a new roof now, you’ll be pleased to hear, all ready for tomorrow to set up my turbo trainer!)

Also, we’ve had a mini honeymoon break in the Lake District for a couple of nights. It was VERY cold and snowy up there, and have returned to -5 weather, so not attempting to go out in this cold and ice.

Tomorrow or Friday I’m nipping up to the gym at the top of the road to sign up and as I said, setting up my bike, so if the cold carries on it won’t stop me. Quite a bit of catching up to do! Going out with Nigel and Ironman Tony on Sunday for a 38mile bike ride to skipton and back. (Perhaps a 19 mile ride there and a 19 mile train journey back for me…)

Next race should be Meltham 10k on 27th Jan, but I now have a hospital appointment on the 25th for a wisdom tooth taking out. They say no exersice or work for four days after, so possibly will be missing my first race of the year. An I disappointed? Yeah. An I letting it get me down? Not in the slightest!

Day 8 of 365 – Progress

Stats

Weigh-in (Jan 8th) 15st 3lbs / 213lbs / 96.6kg
Gain/Loss Total: -4lbs / 1.8kgs

Miles I Should’ve Done To Date: 44
Miles That I Have Done To Date: 38.82
Difference: -5.18

Ran: 5.84
Cycled: 21.8
Walked: 11.18
Swam: 0

In Which I Set My Sights High

THAT’S more like it! Closer to my average than I was last time, almost caught up to it in fact! I have a rest day scheduled for tomorrow though, so that’ll widen the gap again, but I now know that I can catch up where needed, especially seeing as though I’m over my flu. (Thanks to everyone who sent me messages of support!) Also, I’m running home tonight a distance of 3.5miles which means I’ll only be about 1.7 miles short.

4lbs weight loss is quite good for a week! I read somewhere that on average you can lose 3lbs a week due to exercise and healthy eating. Wouldn’t want to lose more than 4lbs a week though, as I don’t want to be a crash dieter.

After today I’m off work for two whole weeks (due to not taking much holiday days last year) and I’m working on a training plan to get in the extra miles while I have the chance. I want to up the run millage to more than match the cycle miles, but will also be going on one or two long(ish) rides to get the practice in.

I cycled the 4.5mile route home the other night, and then something went wrong in my head (probably still ill) and decided to go out for a 1.2mile run to finish! (Technical term: A Brick. I think it’s called this because afterwards my legs felt like stone.) It was a strange sensation, going from a bike to a run in a short period of time, but I managed it!

Signed up to the British 10k run in London in July, in part because it’ll be nice to get away for a few days and do a bit of sightseeing, but mainly because you get a very cool medal, PLUS a spring/summer technical top AND an autumn/winter technical top!

Conversation:

Me: I don’t think I want to do a marathon. I enjoy 10k runs, but didn’t really enjoy that half marathon I did last year. I think I’ll stay away from marathons and stick to 10k runs for most of the year.

Rob: I’ve signed up to the Blackpool Marathon in April.

Me: That sounds like fun, I’ll sign up too!

10 minutes and £30 later, I’m in it. Also, booked a hotel for the weekend in case I can’t walk afterwards. I was supposed to be doing the Lincoln 10k that day, but decided on this instead. (Yes, I checked, there’s a medal.) This means that I need to be upping my miles week on week to get the proper training in. Most marathon plans are 16weeks, but it’s only 12weeks away.

I think I’ll find a plan and just start on week 4, that sounds sensible…

In similar news, it’s announced today that they are starting in York Marathon in October this year, so I’ve gone from ‘No marathons for me!’ to ‘Signed up for two in two days!’

Awesome.

(As always, if you fancy leaving me a review on my blog, click the amazon link on the right. You don’t have to sign up to the kindle blog to review, so it’s free to do. Thanks!)

Day 4 of 365 – Lagging

STATS:

Weigh-in (Jan 1st) 15st 7lbs / 217lbs / 98.4kg
Gain/Loss Total: ——–

Miles I Should’ve Done To Date: 22
Miles That I Have Done To Date: 5.27
Difference: -16.73

Ran: 1.4
Cycled: 0
Walked: 3.87
Swam: 0

In which I’m not where I hoped to be

Ah. As you can see, I’m on Day 4 and already close to 17 miles behind schedule. In my defense, however, I’ve been quite ill. Ill enough to be sent home from work early on the 2nd Jan. Slightly annoyed that the illness chose the start of my 2013 in 2013 challenge to show it’s sickly head, but what can you do about it? Nothing. Apart from keep coughing up mucus (lovely), sweating into the sheets all night (sorry wifey) and over-dosing on throat sweets.

But then on one of my posts, I got this comment:

I always run (or ride) through colds and flus unless it’s the second day (where even my hair hurts). I believe that getting my body temp and heart rate up really shortens duration and severity. I could be wrong but I’ve been doing it for years and am happy with the results. – bgddyjim

All day yesterday I was thinking about it, thinking about going for a run but still felt crappy. The more I thought on it, the more I wanted to go. At the moment Sarah is working split shifts most days (Cabin Crew in the Summer, Care Worker in the winter) and so I mentioned to her the comment on my blog and that I was thinking about going for a short run. It’d been almost a month since I last ran!

She said ‘If you do, why don’t you wait an hour til I go to work?’

‘I might fall down ill and die though,’ I said, ‘and won’t be able to get in touch with you!’

‘That’s true. How long will you be?’

Hang on.

That’s true? What a lovely thing to say to your new husband! In all honesty, it didn’t cross my mind at the time, only now when I’m recalling the conversation. I’ll tell her off when I get in. Might set the kitten on her toes. (He loves attacking toes!)

Anyway, off I set. Since moving I’ve not run once, and don’t know the area fantastically well, so decided to do a short loop that I figured would be about a mile, maybe a mile and a half. (Turned out to be 1.4!) I did a quick walk to the main road as a warm up, then I set off at a slow pace. The route goes slightly uphill, then curves to the left and goes down hill, then a short, sharp uphill to finish.

As I set off I felt fine. No trouble breathing, no aches or anything, so upped the pace a bit. I passed a Policeman who nodded and said ‘Good lad’ as I went by. This made me smile and going into the downhill, I went a little quicker still.

I thought I was holding about 10:30min per mile, so was chuffed when my sports tracker app read out a pace of 9:22min per mile! I actually finished the 1.4 miles with an overall pace of 9:14min per mile, so very happy with that.

It seemed to clear my man-flu for a while too, until I went to bed and it all started again. I felt ill still this morning, but not as bad as previous days, and so to keep my millage up I decided to walk to work. I actually got out of bed at 07:30am (unheard of for me, normally 08:30am!) Even had time for a coffee and a sit down stroking the cat before I set off.

3.8mile walk took just over an hour. Tonight after work, I’ll be running the same distance home, but it’s mostly uphill on the way back so I’m sure I’ll get a good work out from it!

On another note, I’ve started with healthy eating too. Instead of a dozen coffees through the day, I’m allowing myself one in the morning before work, and one before lunch at work. Green Tea (Apple and Pear flavour) is my tipple of choice now. Had an apple this morning for breakfast (instead of no breakfast, or McDonalds) and have made a healthy salad for my lunch.

Bring it on 2013!!