Running for the pies

Running for the pies

Sunday 2 October 2011

The first Post

Why?

A question that has figured prominently in my life... The first girl I ever asked out having said this in reply, and what I should have said if I was quicker of wit was "why not".

I've seen friends like Pini go off and run marathons - and finishing in good times, seen younger guys like Tom Halls complete marathons and followed the Ginge & Dan Hall on Facebook as they've also gone and run the London marathon.

The biggest influence of all however is Jamie Faulkner, with whom I used to play footy, who decided as he hit the big 4-0 to become an Iron Man and blogged about his experiences as he worked hard over this year to accomplish his goal, which he did so at the iron man Wales this September.

The caveat...

As Damon Albarn wrote and Phil Daniels spoke, There's nothing worse than jogging round and round and round, just seeing the same sights in multiples. Like most I too go and do it, but only through necessity in the winter darkness so I do not have to look at the same depressing sights - oh it's that lamp-post again... If I go for a run that is worthwhile and enjoyable then it has got to be with a sight worth seeing to take my mind off things; Countryside, not concrete. When I go out for a run normally it is a 10k trail run from home on to the canal, follow the path to the end then home. Therefore these marathons are all to be off-road/ trail runs.

This off-road distance running thing is not coming entirely out of the blue. After accepting a challenge on Facebook from one of the guys I grew-up with, I ran the Brutal 10k over at Deepcut in the colds of February... I ran it whilst in recovery from a particularly evil groin-strain sustained a few months previous and from which I had not yet recovered and limped across the line agonisingly outside my notional target. That said I thoroughly enjoyed the challenge... Leading on to the next one: In May I ran the village 10 mile race (Hook Fun Run), beating my notional target and last weekend I completed the XT Off-Road Duathlon in Hawley Woods. Ok it may have been near the bottom of the times, but it was faster than I had hoped and on the back of zero training... It made me realise that with a bit of training and preparation I could easily shave 15 minutes off my time and finish comfortably mid-field. This made me hungry for a bigger challenge, not just the full triathlon which I aim to attempt next year, but something even meatier!

So as you can see, I am not a total novice on running off-road. I also tend to cycle a fair bit - next week is the New Forest Gridiron, a 100km round the forest route that I have cycled the last 3 years and I am aiming to complete it in under 4 hours time wheels-turning. This is going to be my first piece of endurance training ready for the big off in January :)

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