The Penultimate Day

Make sure you look out for me on the day! This is what i will be wearing.

Just heard the weather forecast and perfect weather conditions for the race, woop woop. Lets kick some ass!

2 days to go!

Hi guys

So with the big day getting closer and closer I thought I would give you a last update before the race about how everything is going.

So the ankle support didn't really help and I only managed a 9 mile run on the Sunday before last. After that i decided just to bite the bullet and go to see a physiotherapist at Crystal Palace's sports injury clinic. I went there last Friday and it was a very helpful and informative visit. Apparently the injury was caused from me having my running shoes too tight and restricting blood flow etc in my foot. That also caused all the toe problem that i wrote about a few weeks ago. I did read this on the internet when I first had the pain and since then I have loosened my shoes when I run and have seen a big improvement and I never get any pain through my foot and toe anymore but the pain around my ankle just never went away. She did tell me though that I can run on it and not cause any permanent/serious damage to my foot which is excellent news! So I will be pushing myself to the limit come Sunday and will just have to run through the pain :)

With all the ups and downs of marathon training I have come to realise how much I enjoy running and it is something I will continue to do long term, I'm already looking forward to my next marathon which will be in Bournemouth as I get a placement on the back of running the London Marathon. I'm also interested in running marathons in other major cities around the world and will look into entering those in the next few years.

Thanks to everyone who has been reading and everyone who has supported us and everyone who has sponsored us for this, we both really appreciate it!

James

I'm alive!

Hi guys! * embarrassed face*

I've been awful at keeping this blog going! I really thought no one was bothering to check it and kind of lost motivation to keep it going. Well I went 9 weeks so not that bad!

Well anyway I'm now posting this with 2 weeks and 1 day to go till the big day!!!! The sponsorship's have been coming in steadily and very generously so thanks to everyone who has donated so far!

My training has had its ups and downs. My earlier toe injury has completely gone away now after a lot of forum reading and changing a few things about my runs. However the front of my ankle has been playing up for the last few weeks and has been annoying me greatly! For the first time in any training session I actually had to stop! (18 mile run initially and stopped at mile 12). Not that it was impossible for me to carry on but it hurt enough to tell me that if i continued I might do some unnecessary damage.

So maybe I should have gone to see someone by now but I've just been carrying on, completing smaller runs and trying to rest it as much as possible. I bought a ankle support which I will be trying out this weekend when I try and complete another 18 mile run. Crossing fingers that after that I feel confident about the race.

I will run the marathon no matter what happens and I will literally have to have no legs left not to finish, I'm just slightly disappointed at this stage that I may not reach my potential in terms of what time I can complete it in. But oh well, these things happen and I'm not giving up yet! my target time is staying the same and I'm going to give it one hell of a go.

I will report back after my long Sunday run and let you know if the ankle support did it's job!

:D

Training Schedule (Week Nine)

Week 8 Recap:
Week 8 went well, it was a bit of a more relaxed week apart from the Sunday which was a half marathon at race pace which I did within target at 1 hour 33 minutes and 19 seconds. However it is Monday now and I'm slightly worried about how my toe feels today, get a weird feeling when I lift my toes up and have possibly done some damage, I will take it easy over the next couple of days so I don't make it worse and I just hope it isn't something serious!

Sponsorship Letters

I just sent out lots of sponsorship letters to relatives and family friends so if you have come onto the blog because you read it in your letter, then a big welcome and thanks for taking a keen interest in what we're doing!

Make sure you read all the posts and check out the runkeeper profiles on the sidebar to see how my training has been going over the last 2 months.

Thanks to everyone who has sponsored us so far and thanks if you plan to in the near future!

Training Schedule Catch Up (Six - Eight)

Wow I've been very slack over the last couple of weeks! Not in my running though you will be glad to know, but in my updating of this blog! I do apologise (If anyone is even reading it anyway).

So the last couple of weeks have been going really well, had some really big runs including a 16 Mile and an 18 Mile on the last 2 Sundays! And although they were tough, it did give some confidence that I have the endurance to last the marathon, which is always good to know.

I'm writing this on Saturday so I have not yet completed week seven as I have to run a massive 20 mile tomorrow, and just about to get ready to go out in London so lets hope 20 miles with a hangover isn't an impossible task.

Here are the weekly schedules that I have yet to post including next weeks (Week Eight).

Training Schedule (Week Five)

Week Four Recap: Because of weeks three's intensity and just the fact that we have racked up so many miles in such a short period of time, I personally wasn't feeling great at the start of this week, Monday's run is the easiest of the week and I felt both legs seizing up after I completed it. Because of this I decided I would take it easy at the beginning of the week and let my legs fully recover before putting them through anymore pain! This was all good, I got to Thursday, felt much better and had a nice 8 mile run, just as I'm feeling ready to get back into the schedule, it snows like hell meaning it's now too slippery to run over the weekend! Not great news but hopefully that will all clear for a nice solid week five! Not too sure how Dan got on as he has been forgetting to update his run keeper profile but I did have a chat to him and he's been doing a lot better than me this week although he too was forced not to run because of the weather.

Training Schedule (Week Four)

Week Three Recap: Week three stepped it up a notch with the final nail in the coffin being the massive 15 miler on Sunday! Me and Dan both went to the crystal palace running track on Tuesday as it was our interval run and we thought it might be easier to judge our distance breaks and pace. This was a good decision as it did prove to me very helpful and also less traffic and pedestrians to worry about when your zooming down the streets. Unfortunately Dan got injured half way through this session, he cleverly stopped so he wouldn't cause more damage and he just did a couple of short light runs through the week to give it a chance to heal up! A easy week for him seems to have done the trick and after playing a whole game of football on Sunday morning it sounds like he will be fighting fit for week number 4, Bring it on!

Training Schedule (Week Three)

Week Two Recap: We ended up doing every run as it said on the week two training schedule except for Tuesday's interval training which we adjusted to 1 mile tempo runs instead of 2 miles. We felt that 2 miles at tempo pace three times might be slightly too difficult at this stage so we made it more realistic, which we ended up completely well within target. All the other days went without a hitch for both of us, Daniel switched round his Saturday and Sunday runs as he plays football on Sunday and feels 13 miles on top of that might be pushing it! Bring on week three.