Sooo, looks like keeping this up to date has gone horribly by the wayside! The last update was far to long ago frankly, and a lot has happened since. In brief I have managed to run (mostly) the Great North Run in 2 hours 26 mins, pretty much took four weeks off and then did the Oxford Half Marathon in 2 hours 5 mins, and then sort of stopped running. Renovating my little cottage has kind of taken over my life in the last year or so.
Oh, and I've found myself a new running partner, Miss Not-So-Anti-Running. She's annoyingly fit and healthy and what have you, and actually enjoys exercising, the weirdo. Despite trying, I have no chance of keeping up with her yet but I'm sure she will feature here more regularly as my training progresses.
So, why am I back in training? Well, the charity auction that Hannah and I held last year did amazingly well, and we raised a total of £4000!! This was much more than we expected to raise in one evening, and is testament to the team's hard work. Unfortunately, not long after Hannah picked up an injury that even she was told to stop ignoring for once and had to put running on hold for a while. As such, we haven't run together for a while, but I hope that her and my other training partners will all be back soon. As Hannah is unable to join me, the whole amount was available to support my solo application with MacMillan for the 2017 London Marathon. And last Thursday I got a phone call from them offering me a place! So like it not, I am now running the London Marathon!! Oh bugger.
And so it was time to dig out the running shoes, the skimpy shorts and technical tops and start pounding some pavement. Thankfully, there's plenty of places to run from my new house, but I live pretty much on top of a hill. Which is great on the downhill bits, but it's all hills round here, even more so than were I used to live. At least hills make for good training, as if I can run 20-odd miles round here without dying immediately the marathon will be less of a struggle than it might otherwise be. Still the hardest thing I'll ever do, and my biggest challenge!
So with the need to get running firmly in place, I have been out three times in the last couple of weeks getting 5km/3mile runs under my belt to get my basic fitness back. House building is good for the muscles, but crap for cardio fitness and the lungs! So my pace is a bit down from what it was, with the first three runs averaging 6 mins 20 secs/km. Still, it's hardly a surprise and I am already back up to running 5km non-stop. I know that might not sound much, but it's pretty much the only regular running I've done in 12 months so I'm happy with it for now. 10km is the next big target, along with 5km well under 30 mins. As I've got 30 weeks to go, I don't want to go at it too fast and break myself!
There will be more to come, but as I do still have to get work on the house done I will aim for a weekly update for now. My next run is Saturday, weather permitting, and will hopefully be a bit longer to stretch my legs out.
