After 37 years of running, and countless middle distance track races, road and cross country races, and not to mention all the triathlons I did in my 20 years as a full time athlete, this year at the ripe old age of 46 I have decided to do my first marathon. I managed to get an elite start for London which gave me an guaranteed entry… so the London Marathon it is.
I won the British Universities 1,500m title over 26 years ago and after that turned professional as triathlete, retiring at 41, after getting up to 2nd in the world in the related sport of duathlon in 2003. I did manage one world title although all be it a masters title in 10,000m All those years when one would normally have thought about marathon running I was triathloning.( new verb)
My aims for this year after the London Marathon is to see how fast I can run on the track. I thought I would document my progress problems along the way, as it may be informative to new comers and also one or two of you may find it interesting.
My full time running career ended after I injured my left knee back in 1984 and was told I would never run again. It took me two years to get over that, but words such as never and impossible do not agree with me, so that was how I discovered cross training and triathlon as a way to rehabilitate and recover. Later, X-training became a natural way for me to stay injury free and to reach peak performance. Over the years I have studied at Loughborough, Long Beach, Leeds, Sheffield and Tsukuba University in Japan and also coached Olympic triathletes and so built a wide base of academic and practical experience. You would think I would have all the answers.
However I start off this blog rather embarrassingly INJURED ! ( I will let you know how that happened next time).
Since I am injured, the one key thing I have learnt is to make all negatives into a positive. Ok I have an ankle injury so I can’t run, but I can still use the stepper and X-trainer which are none impact and I can carry out a whole series of exercises in the gym to maintain muscle mass and of course I can use that spare time concentrating on what all runners hate…stretching.
I have also decided to run the Okinawa marathon 22nd February. Instead of doing lots of long runs I have entered the marathon so I can get my nutrition and fluid intake right under race conditions, and test my stamina. I will however limit my speed to about 85-90%. For those who are getting jealous about my apparent jet setting lifestyle…I have to go to Japan and Okinawa on work. I just thought I would squeeze a marathon in while there and combine work with pleasure ( or may it will be work and pain…not sure on that one!)
Having not run for 10 days now, all these plans look in jeopardy, but as the cliché says, life is a journey not a destination, with all the ups and downs I have had, I still love the journey, so I thought I would keep a blog to keep a record of may training and racing this year and all the highs and lows along the way.
Oh and one last comment for this entry, my estimated time. Well I never do anything in half measures so I set my self a tough target of sub 2:30… My reasoning if the target is too easy the challenge is no fun, if it is too tough you will just give up on route.