Week 3

Well week 3 has been quite eventful, unfortunately not all good, the theme has been pretty much about my legs being tired which has made running more of a chore than the normal pleasure. I have been tweeting short comments about each of my runs this week which have probably covered most of the interesting facts, but if you really are a glutton for punishment and must have the full unedited version please try to stay awake as I prattle on, mainly about my legs, which by now can't know what's hit them this year.

Day 16. Over the weekend I had been thinking that the constant pounding down the steep Warlingham hills was agravating my aching legs so I decided for Monday that I would attempt a run on the flat. To do this I had to drive up Westhall road a bit. So I ran a new route around the village, all nice and flat but I struggled with nonetheless.(3.58 miles 5.8km 28.12 min)

Tuesday day 17. I was starting to think that a break would be wise to help my legs recover but decided to try the flat route again. The legs were still aching but despite them feeling really stiff I managed a much quicker time and in fact the fastest pace of the year.
About this time @copy7t (a fellow #janathon er) made the observation that this route made the shape of an anteater and when I looked at the route on the map view sure enough it had. This tickled my sense of humour and I promptly challenged @copy7t to do an animal of his own. (3.56 miles 5.8 km 25.32min)

Wednesday day 18. I felt I had to break my non stop running streak at this point as my legs seemed to be begging for mercy, very stiff and aching quite a lot now. I had a game of table tennis booked in with a fellow enthusiast and we had a 45min thrash about which became my #janathon exercise for the day. It was a real shame to break my intended continous running for every day but I think this was wise, an injury would be a disaster now with two half marathons on the horizon. @copy7t managed to produce a great snake shaped run which was cool and meant I absolutely had to come up with a new animal.

Thursday day 19. I was back in my running shoes even though I must admit my legs did not feel rested, one day was obviously not enough. I had worked out a route earlier in the day which I thought would give me a fabulous Rhino shape, perfect for the new animalathon. It would mean a long run, over 6.5 miles, but I was keen to try a longer run anyway so off I set. I was really slow but was not too bothered just keen that I could keep going and remember the route.
I had a couple of faster miles in the middle of the run but for most if the run the pace was slow with my legs complaining for most of the way.
When I was done I eagerly checked out the shape of the route and was pleased to see a definate Rhino shape.....with boots on...hmmm well close enough.
My daughter promptly requested a giraffe on my next run. (6.38 miles 10.3km 52.35mins)

Friday day 20. I decided on another short run to recover from the Rhino effort. This I did at a steady pace. My legs were still stiff and achy so no fun. Looking at the route afterwards, I couldn't help but think that this route was a rather good Diplodocus. Complete fluke. (3.5miles 5.6km 26.38min)

Saturday was Parkrun day and my children were both going to run the full distance, this was great news and I decided to run with them. James had another eventful Parkrun as he tripped up and fell on the first lap, but he got up and managed to hold back the tears to carry on albeit with sore hands.
Sadly I had to shoot off after the run so was not able to catch up with everyone at the Good companions.

Sunday day 22, was supposed (according to my Half Marathon training plan) to be a long 10 mile run, but given the state of my legs I decided to do a short steady run. This was probably for the best as I really struggled round my 3.5 mile route (Diplodocus) My time was the slowest of the year and this run made me think more carefully about my training over the next few weeks.(3.5miles 5.6km 28.00min)

The unfortunate theme for the week (apart from the cheerful distraction of animal drawing which has been christened #runart by another child at heart and #janathoner @rencestar) was my tired legs and while at first I was hoping that I would eventually start improving and my legs would cope, it seems this has not happened and they will need a break unless I risk injuring them. 'Listen to your body they say', well mine was saying 'rest'. I decided to change my approach for week 4 which would mean, disappointingly, (is that a real word?) a reduction in miles and runs, I would continue my #janathon with more aerobic exercise or even cycle rides and allow my legs to recover. I am desperate to start pushing up the distance to prepare for Feb 19th but at the moment there is no way I can even entertain more than 6 miles.

So next weeks target will be recovery and a giraffe

Week 2 .....and a bit

I kicked off the second week of abuse with a slightly longer distance run, sunday, a good day for a longer run and ideally along a more interesting daytime route. The day didn't quite pan out as planned though and after spending the day DIYing, a later than expected start meant I would have to stick to a lit street route.
I managed 6.35m (10.3km) in 48.02min which I was happy with considering it was at the end of a week of running, something I have never before subjected my body to.

Monday was the first day of my self prescribed 12 week training schedule for the Reading Half Marathon, again a short recovery day after the first longer Sunday run, I had a bit of trouble with the new Garmin watch which is taking a while to sink with the satelites, I bet Mo Farah doesn't have these problems.
I found I was a bit tired and managed only a steady run but legs seem to be holding together well despite no rest. (3.5 mile 5.6km 26.53min)

Tuesday Day 13 and I managed to get out before dark for a nice run out to Woldingham School and back, 6.2m (10km). I really didn't feel like it, for the first time, my legs now were starting to feel weary and the first couple of miles were quite stiff, but I sped up for the middle section and made my target time of 8min/miles. Definately a more enjoyable run in daylight and I felt quite good especially after 3 miles. The run finishes with a steep sharp hill, though, and I managed to keep running up it even though my feet felt like they were running on the spot. (6.2 mile 10km 48.31min)

I scheduled two steady short runs for the next two days and I'm glad I did because my legs were feeling pretty wrecked by now. On Wednesday I bumped into two friends half way round and had a rest while I chatted for a couple of minutes. This was probably quite fortuitous as I did start to speed up at about this point and would probably have overdone it. (3.5 mile 5.6km 26.58min including the stop so definately faster)

Thursday, day 12, was a very busy day and, for sure, there is no way this run would have happened if I hadn't had an unbroken 11 runs in 11 days, I forced myself out the door despite having loads to do and feeling quite tired. I was rewarded with a really mild evening run, t-shirt and no gloves. During the run I did start to feel a bit faster again.(3.5 mile 5.6km 25.55min)

Friday 13th was true to form, I was busy and a bit slow to get out the door bearing in mind we were going out with friends. We were due to go out at 7.05pm and I managed to get running at 6.10pm. I was due to do a 6ish mile run and this would take about 48 minutes.....D'oh that left me with 7 minutes to recover, shower and change, I would need at least 10 minutes to get myself looking my normal fabulous self.....shut it!.....so it was not going to work. I decided to shorten the run slightly from the normal 6.35 miles to gain a couple of minutes, you can see the precisly planned way by which I live my life can't you......actually it would be more accurate to say 'last minute' way, but please just go along with it.
The run was a bit of a disaster, cars turning in front of me at every junction, unable to cross a couple of roads due to traffic and to top it all, I went down a wrong road and had to make a U turn, idiot. Any way I got back with minutes to spare, had the fastest shower on record, didn't even get wet, and shot out looking like a million dollars, zimbabwe dollars. (5.85 mile 9.5km 44.39min)

Saturday, day 14, Riddlesdown parkrun was to be my well earned rest day, I had promised to run with my children, Lauren and James after James had had a dog jump up at him the previous week giving him a fright.
They decided to do one lap of the two lap course despite my gentle persuation so we ran together until the halfway point, I did speed up for the second lap but I must say I had no life in my legs at all and in fact my lower legs felt quite painful. (3.1 mile 5km 28.46min)
I had to cut short my visit to the Good Companions afterwards, unfortunately, as I had a job to do at 11am, which then cancelled #@$&@!

Today is day 15, Sunday and my Reading Half Marathon schedule, which I had compiled while relaxing with legs up in an armchair, dictated that I do at least 8 miles today, didn't seem such a good idea at 7pm when I finally got my running shoes on. Still I do need to start upping...uping....up-ing.....increasing the distance if I don't want to die on the last few miles of the HM. To make matters worse, I have also entered the Brighton HM which is sooner (19 Feb) but there is no way I will have done adequate preparation for this one....which is ironic as I have been constantly nagging my best mate and junior school buddy, Andy, to keep up his training for this one (which I talked him into). He is new to running and has been on a very ambitious forced training regime as I have roped him into progressively longer runs. Well done mate, Ultra marathon next year, OK?
Oops, I digress, todays run was good, despite the freezing temperature, I completed my 8 miles, 8.5 in fact, in my target time of 8min/miles. My lower legs were still feeling sore for the first half but I felt better later and was really pleased that I had pushed up the distance, 10 miles next weekend.

Well what a week 34 miles in total, just a couple of miles short of a record for me and 64 miles for the month. Definately gonna make that 100 mile target for the month and as long as I don't injure myself I feel like I have a great chance of Janathon success, and if you had told me that at Christmas I would have exploded with laughter spraying the room with wine and chocolate.

First week

Well at last I have got around to writing my first Janathon post to make my efforts official. Almost as amazing as the fact that I have been running every day this month so far.
Although the idea of Janathon is to do some excercise every day in January, for me Janathon is going to be a run every day.

Before I start I should first excuse the inevitable catalogue of errors and blunders on this blog as it if my first attempt and I will have to learn as I go.

I should begin by saying that while I have been an enthusiastic runner for most of my life I am probably the worlds most inconsistent one. I am lucky enough to be able to run quite well considering my embarrassingly poor dedication and erratic training.
But despite this promise I have never managed to motivate my lazy ass to train properly and so when a friend recently mentioned a 2012km in 2012 challenge to me..... (a friend who I had met through the riddlesdown parkrun, a fellow runner who genuinely deserves the term runner, who runs regularly every week, who sets goals and achieves them, and even gets up for early morning runs, the holy grail, thanks Steve) .....it sounded like a great idea but to be honest I did not believe for one second that I would be able to do what amounts to 1247 miles in a year considering I only managed about 400 last year and that was not a bad year for me.

Janathon seemed like a good idea for the new year and a great step toward the 2012km goal.

So all that half hearted effort is in the past now as I have finally embarked on a momentously awesome training schedule....for me.



Day 1 was easy, New Years Day Parkrun at riddlesdown. I was always going to do the new year run despite a cold especially with the additional bonus of lunch at the pub after, I ran a steady 23mins as I hadn't run for three weeks (this is not uncommon).

Day 2, Ok, this I did not expect to be a problem, I had the day off of work so expected to easily get out for a run, and yes, hurrah!, I notched up a gentle 3.5 miles around Warlingham.

Day 3, In all the years of running I have only managed three days in a row a hand full of times so this was an additional boost. Actually at about this point I started to feel more confident about success, I don't know why but I really felt I should stop being such a lazy sod and do some decent training like normal runners do, I am getting theoretically further and further away from my prime running years and if I don't do it now I will probably always wonder how fast I could go. So with this seed of determination taking root I chalked up another 3.5m. Steady again, about 7.5min/mile pace.

Day 4, Uncharted territory now 4 runs in 4 days, wow, fairly normal for most people but a life changing moment for me......ok maybe that's a bit strong but small beginnings can lead to great stuff. 3.5m again steady pace.

Day 5, Thursday, this was a real test because I had a long and tiring day, typically the sort of day I would comfort myself with the fact that I had the perfect reason to 'go running tomorrow', but oh no! no way especially as I had remembered the response from Sara, my wife when I mentioned the Janathon challenge and she just smiled a sort of 'yeah right' smile.
Normally she would be spot on but not this Thursday, 5 out of 5 was in the bag.

Day 6. By this stage I really was starting to feel unstoppable, I still hadn't shaken off my cold but had notched up a run every day for nearly a week, despite numerous opportunities to delay or put off. I didn't even know this alien who had taken over my brain, would I start remembering where I leave my keys and start getting up early now too..........no hang on lets not get carried away.

Day 7 Saturday Riddlesdown Parkrun, I ran at a pleasantly sedate pace with Steve (who had set this whole revolution in motion), he was nursing an injury and I was keen to keep this first week fairly low impact. We had an enjoyable chat only further cementing my resolve.


So the first week was complete in almost perfect fashion. No long or hard runs, a nice gentle start to the challenge. A real week of discovery for me, all I've got to do is keep forcing myself out the door and it is even possible that I will become addicted to this dedicated approach.

Will try to keep future blogs a little more succinct and less rambling.