Ups & Downs

It’s that time again, yes it’s my monthly training update. Firstly I’d like to thank all of you who have been kind enough to donate money to CLIC Sargent  and help to get me closer to my target. At this point with only 6 months to go it’s looking very likely that I will be running in a nurses uniform, not sure if I should be thanking you all for this though. October has been such an up and down month, I did my first 10k race and spent half the month injured. I was really pleased with my performance in it and managed to finish in the midfield which was a really good feeling. I learnt a lot from it, but the main thing was to run your own race. I found very early on that running with other people can quite quickly get you into a herd mentality. One of the other lessons  was to learn the terrain of the route. I was at the about the 4k mark when I noticed one rather steep hill in front of me, now I have to say this was quite a shock as I wasn’t expecting it. Half way up it I felt like death, it was at this point I realised I had to run up it a second time! I managed to finish with a time of 54:07.

This month I’ve had to deal with shin splints and a cold one after the other, it’s meant I’ve not been able to run for 3 of the last 4 weeks. I’ve been climbing up the walls wanting to get out. I managed to get out 5 times, covered 36km’s, burned 3,356 calories with a total time duration 3hrs 9mins. Due to injury and illness I’ve mainly done short 4k runs, but on the positive side I finished the month with a 13.27km run the longest distance I’ve ever run.

December is all about kicking the distance up and no longer about getting fast times. I’m going to be running an average of 30kms a week, while focusing at running 5.30 per km as this is the pace I’m looking to run the marathon at. Hopefully it isn’t going to get to cold out there.

A Real Challenge

 If I’m to be honest and frank, no I haven’t changed my name I mean frank as in being straight. I’ve not set myself any real challenges  to go for, nothing that really pushes myself completely out of my comfort zone. Until that was about a month ago, when I decided to do something that will push me way outside my comfort zone. I’ve set myself an 18 month time scale to achieve my challenge, so that's the 11th January 2012.

 So what's the challenge? well over the last 8 months I’ve been jogging to get fit. I have to say though I’ve always had a dislike of running, partly from having asthma as a kid while at the same time having a minor balance problem. But over the last 8 months I’ve started getting a kick from running and I’ve even been gradually increasing the distances up to 10km. Based on this I've decided to run a marathon, yes I am mad but why not for once in my life set myself a real challenge.

Update on Fri, July 16, 2010 at 7:21 AM by Nicholas Armitt

Ok well I've found a marathon to enter and pre-registered thanks to a friends help. Just so happened that on the weekend I decided that I was going to do a long distance run pre-registration for the Edinburgh opened up. I was a little worried that it could be quite hilly, but thankfully it isn't. I should find out next month if I've got a place so fingers crossed.

Update on Tue, August 3, 2010 at 12:23 PM by Nicholas Armitt

Well I got my e-mail invite yesterday, signed up and paid my entry fee. I have no excuses now I'm going to have to face it I've got about 9 months to get ready for my first and possibly last marathon. I'm actually quite excited by the prospect while being a little bit of nervous at the same time.

I'm going to blog my progress each month on the run upto the 22nd May, so if you want to see my progress then just pop back every so often.