Thursday 15 August 2013

Weeks 31 & 32


The Longest Mile

It is exactly one month to the day until I take on the biggest personal sporting challenge yet. Reflecting on where I was at the point of starting my training to now, and I can only feel proud of what I have achieved, the mentality to stick to something, the drive to succeed along with physical changes, like losing 2 stone. If anyone reading wants to make a difference to their life and do something that will help others, I can not recommend entering into a half marathon enough

Over the last 2 weeks I have upped the anti with the training, the objective was to reach 12 miles, and so like it became that on a Saturday morning at 8am I went off to my training ground Pitsford Resevoir along with a good friend from work, who has been dragged into the running world by me the poor fella, to achieve the target I set out I would need to complete approximately 2 laps round.

It is a testament to the training that a 10k run is no longer a gruelling challenge but a nice run and as so it made the first lap nice and easy, the feeling of ease continues until approx 8 miles, then the lactic starts to kick in almost screaming at you to stop, a bit like the old monster from the shreddies adverts, you end up relying on your fluid intake to keep your ailing legs at bay, a strong mentality is required at this point, I find taking it a mile at a time helps, just thinking only 10 more minutes the it is mile 9 .. 10 .. etc. There was one thing that I wasn't prepared for and that is the hunger pain feeling kicking in. Reading articles your body can store enough carbohydrates for an hour and a half worth of exercise after that it rely's on you topping it up.Now I didn't have a bite to eat with me so I had to make work keeping a bottle of lucozade to last.

Eventually the end was in sight and the man from my nike plus running app read out 12 miles completed time 2 hours, I had done it and the time was not too shabby either, it was kind of a euphoric moment when I hit the milestone and now I know I can definitely do it I am going to savor the last mile that will be dedicated solely to Jasmine, Bring it on.

Numbered

This week I received my running pack including number and timing chip. I will be joining the pink brigade and starting from the K area which means I will be starting right from the back 56,000 runners in front of me that will be some spectacle. This is because when I filled in my entry form I said it would take me nearly 4 hours as it was all an unknown based on training I should do it in about 2 hours. So just incase you see me on BBC look out for runner 51376.