Manchester Marathon

11th October 2015

How many ways are there to skin a cat or for me how many ways are there to put off going for a run to start your Marathon training !

For some time I have wanted to run a marathon, I have always been one of those people who watch the London marathon in awe of many of the competitors .When my youngest son was about 18 months old( nearly 11 years ago) Julie our Finance manager suggested that as an organisation we did a race for life. I had never run and at school anything over 200 meters was long distance for me, but I was determined to run and not walk it. I asked my sister to join me and began my training. After the relative ease of a 5 k we signed up for a 10 k at Harewood house , this was much more difficult and we thought we could eat a horse when we had finished as we had run so far! I was horrified to find out a few months later that women have to run an average of 28 miles a week to loose weight and men only have to do 19 ! After a few more 10ks we entered the Great North Run and that is where we have stuck until now and running spasmodically when I entered a race.

So back to the present , In about May of this year I decided I was definitely going to run a marathon and it would be a good idea to try and incorporate it into a fundraiser for WHAG by having charity places. Full of enthusiasm I started asking people and was going to start running , but there was always a reason why not , too hot, too cold, too busy, too rainy, too tired, got a bad knee, fallen, you get the picture.

So here we are 11th October, 25 weeks to the Manchester Marathon nearly 2 stones overweight and I have just done about a mile and a half , that’s not enough according to the training manual and a week too late. On the plus side I ran it all, I wasn’t dizzy, something that I have struggled with for a couple of years when running and felt I could have carried on. So now three times a week come rain or shine I will have to be out. I haven’t quite worked out how I will fit it in but think I will be dragging a teen and a pre teen with me sometimes. Hopefully by the 10th April I will be fitter and thinner and whilst I will be very slow I will be able to say I have run a Marathon.

February 2016

Oh the enthusiasm, never brilliant at the best of times we re now 7 weeks to the marathon so thought I better get round to doing a proper update for the web site, something else I was going to do and have failed at.

I was trying to think the other day what are the positives about running this marathon and apart from seeing my sister every weekend since October and another friend who joined us mid January I haven’t come up with anything. Even though most of the time all I can see is there backs in the distance.

I don’t feel any fitter and haven’t lost any weight ,so can only assume I am not trying hard enough, and I am really struggling with dizziness when I run that nobody has any ideas about what is causing it.

We have done long runs consistently on a Saturday morning and have only missed 3 weekends since October. Fitting runs in during the week has been a different story dark nights (see excuses above) .Running to work in a morning has been doable as long as I can get the car there the previously evening . Basically I have decided that this running lark is all in the mind and you really have to believe you can do it. I have decided that if I can finish the marathon before the roads open , they open 6 hours from the elite start, that will be okay for me. I have even resigned myself to the possibility of being last.

So today a blessed relief of only 8 miles with next Saturday’s 18 to look forward too. I have an event to attend on the Friday night so won’t get an early night so early night this week with at least to runs in the week is this weeks target. I am currently reading Chris Evans latest book and have just got to his chapter on his marathon exploits from last year, he talks about shuffling which is defiantly what I do , so I am hoping I might pick up some tips.