More things that stop you training

What a week and what a discovery of things that can stop you training. I give you exhibit 1. This little pink squishy thing is bured deep inside your body attached to your liver. It's a gallbladder and the little things shown inside it are gallstones. When one of these little stones decides to go on holiday down the 'bile duct', it goes out with a song and a dance. One that leaves you, its owner, flat on your back in utter unimaginable pain. So this is exactly what happened to Sarah on Monday. But in good old England we have a NHS system and our thought was. Well, Sarahs in A&E, they will take her to the operating theatre and remove the thing. Well slap me wth a cold cod, thats not what the NHS does. The NHS might deal with you immediately if your in a car crash, but not for a gallbladder. No, A&E 'manage' your pain, then tell you to goto the GP, join the waiting list that will probably take 20 weeks. Or you can go private and it will be done on Monday. Welcome to the real world and I believe its time for everyone to have private medical insurance, just like in the US, but with the double whammy that you also pay tax that goes to the NHS. What an eye opener this experience has been.

The other thing to stop training is snow. Thursday bought 4 inches of it and Boxhill looks really pretty. The schools all closed, the train system chugged along slowly and the only thing to do was stay at home for the day or suffer 4 hours commuting. So stayed at home.

But to be honest, I have managed to keep to the plan this week, fitting in the shorter runs somehow. The weekend is still to come though and a 24km run needs to be done.

The weekend has passed and I have missed the long run. Thats the second one, but it's still early in the training plan and I am sure I can still get the long runs in, in the coming weeks.

Sarah really is not well. She now appears to have a stone stuck in the bile duct and is desparate to get help tomorrow. I dearly hope the blood tests are OK in the morning and she can get the operation done. Again, this is a total eye opener for me, and the lesson is, if you have a non urgent condition, the NHS will fail you. But lets not turn this into a NHS rant.

Things that stop you from training

A poor week for me this week. I managed to keep up with the mid week schedule and was going to do the Watford Half marathon as my long run for the weekend. But Saturday night I did not sleep well and Sarah was not feeling great either, so I did not goto the Watford Half. I intended to do 13 miles as a training run on Sunday afternoon, but the kids homework sucked the life out of me and I have not done my long run for the week.

Thursday was my best session this week. Thursday is DMVAC club night and we went off to the hills of Dorking and did alot of timed or fast uphill sessions. If you want 'porridge legs', then go do some hill workouts.

This week I have been in the gym on Monday, Hyde Park on Wednesday, Dorking on Thursday, gym again on Friday and Boxhill on Saturday for a total of about 30 miles. It has been a bit tough to fit training in this week and I wonder how people training for Ironman manage.

But 1 bad week does not mean failure. You just have to get back on plan next week!

A Flexible Training Plan

There can't be many people around who don't find marathon training relentless. The weeks stretch out ahead, the shorter runs get longer, the longer runs get to epic distances.

This week I have been forced to change my plan. Monday was a 9.6km run, but my knees were sore from the Sunday long run so I went to the gym. The treadmill is easier on my knees and I substituted some biking and rowing. Tuesday & Wed I stuck to the plan. Thursday was club handicap night. I have not done one of these before and was given a decent handicap of 7:50. So nearly 8 minutes after the first person I set off. 5.5km later and I was the second person across the line. Ahhhhh, a taste of winning! Well thats a new one for me. Friday was a day off and on Saturday Sarah was ill and I substituted the run with, walking around Brockham Big Field doing the boys football thing, making lunch, then 2hrs in Dorking swimming pool being a human climbing frame and underwater surfboard for the boys and Sophie, then tea and getting 3 kids to bed. Did somehow manage to do about 20 lengths in the pool though. Sunday I did my long run. 28.8km (18miles). My total weekly distance is lower than it should be, but I feel the extra activities have made up for it.

A month back the doctor took my blood pressure as 140/92 and told me about 'whitecoat syndrome' (your blood pressure goes up because the doctor frightens you!), now the thing that put my nose out of joint was that, I run 30 miles a week, what does my blood pressure think it's doing? So I went to the ebay doctor and got me a new toy. For less than the price of a new running shirt you can take your own blood pressure. The boys and I have been playing all weekend with this, and the good news is we all have a blood pressure. BP Chart Oliver was the first to record a systolic pressure under 100 and mine right now is 118/75 and a HR of 57. Thats more like the figures I want to believe. Cool toy, and granny is coming on Tuesday, hee hee hee hee!

Priorities and Training

Fitting in a long run at the weekend can be difficult. Todays long run was to take 2:15. The plan was to wake up and go do the run. But it was 10:30am before I was up and ready to go. That would mean the family would miss the best part of the day to go out and do something together. My priority being my family meant a quick change out of running gear and we were off out to Polesden Lacy. Here we are with me teaching the boys how to balance their lives! But I still have a marathon goal to achieve, so at 2:30pm I set off for a 24km run which meant I just about got home before it got dark. So a good day that shows me it is possible to fit in training without impacting family life too much.

This week I have again pretty much kept to the plan (8.83km, 8.39km, 9.6km, 8.9km, 6.91km and 24.9km) fitting in runs at lunchtime, on the way home from work and late in the evening. I felt tired on Saturdays 6.4km run but apart from that I am feeling pretty good. Missed the club run on Thursday because the trains out of London were affected by the high winds we had all day.

But now another pressing commitment calls, Daniels homework. Adios for now.

Return to the Surrey Hills

This week I have run 60.8km. This is an easy week with a shorter long run at the weekend. 20.8km (13 miles) and so I went off around the trails through Boxhill, Headley, Mickleham, Norbury, Ranmore and West Humble. Of course the NT land is shared by many people, horses and dogs. I recognise that dogs like to go for walks as much as I like running though the Surrey hills. But dogs do see runners as a threat and it's difficult for me to share the dog owners belief about their dogs nature as it comes towards me. Will it sniff or bite me? But I did admire the owner of the barking, snarling Alsation. Muzzled, tied up and electronic collar. I never knew this sort of thing existed, but a quick Internet search shows it could be quite common. Maybe it could be adapted to work at the sound of barking as well.

I feel better at this point in the training plan than I did last time I followed it in the summer, and managed to run back up Boxhill at the end of the run instead of calling Sarah to come and get me in the car. But marathon training is about doing lots of miles, and as I look down the plan, there are lots of miles to come, roughly 800 of them! Oh well, 1 step at a time.

Tadworth 10 and once more for luck

The Tadworth 10. I entered this event, (I don't call them races because I don't have a hope of winning), before I got the London Marathon place, so it did not fit exactly to the training plan. I shall try to find a way of posting my plan to the blog.

The start is a way from the carpark, so I got there early and ended up trying to keep warm on a wet and windy Epsom Downs racecourse. Started talking to another runner who had a heart transplant and then took up running! He is running a number of marathons this year to raise awareness for transplant donors, his website is here. Only after finding his site today did I realise he is the same age as me. It makes you realise its all too easy to take your health for granted.

I told myself all the way around to 'just go slow, treat it as a training run'. Did I? I guess I was a bit faster than a training run, but not totally pushing it. Certainly sprinted for the finish line as I watched the clock tick past 1:20. Completed the 10 miles in 1:20:03 a little slower than last year. Got the goody bag, a pair of gloves this year, and set off around again to complete the 15 miles my training plan told me to do.

On my, 'lap of honour', I got a number of strange looks from Marshalls packing up their stations and offered a second goody bag from the Marshalls at the finish line!

I am really pleased with the way I feel after this long run. The legs feel strong, and I felt I could go further. So different from when I was last at this point in my training.

My finish position 187th, I can definately improve on this and will return to do better next year.

This week I have run 5 times, 8.46km, 8.62km, 10km, 7.47km and 25.15km for a total of 59.7km (37.3 miles), this is 2km above plan, so I've started well and pleased with my progress.

As hard as it gets

I wandered what the difference would be between training for a marathon through the summer and training in winter. After the first week I think I know.

This week I have run 5 times, 7.25km, 11.25km, 10.4km, 6.48km, and 20.82km all in Cornwall where the hills keep coming, the wind drives across the ladscape at 30 knots and the rain comes down sideways. So whilst trying to run uphill into the driving wind and rain, and splashing in the stream of runoff water coming down the road, I did wander if it was a good idea to train for a spring marathon!

By the time I stopped today all of my breathable, wicking, lightweight, waterproof clothing was waterlogged. Heres my tip of the day. Waterproof does not mean waterproof.

And the last woe of the day is that wet wicking materials are just as bad as cotton for 'chafing', maybe I won't go into too much detail.

Happy New Year ....