Days to go 36
Miles today None – rest day before Sunday’s 20-miler
Miles this week 18
Miles last week 34 – "tapering" (look at me with the lingo) for Sunday
Miles 2011 288.6
Miles 2011 288.6
Other exercise Yoga and digging at the allotment
Thought for the day
Training for a marathon is like falling pregnant and giving birth.
At first everything is wonderful: you feel on top of the world. Everyone is full of congratulations and you’re over the moon: so proud and so excited.
Gradually, as the weeks pass, reality sets in and you start to doubt yourself. Your life and body are irrevocably changing. Will you be able to cope? Are you really ready for it?
Then, before you know it, the big day arrives.
You’re gasping for air, sweating and cursing. You can do nothing but keep pushing on. Every step is agony, but takes you closer to the end, and the moment when you will cradle your prize to your heart. All the months of waiting and preparation, every moment of self-doubt and pain have led to this – the euphoria of crossing the finish line.
Thought for today was generously supplied by
a delirious SG at about mile 15 of a mammoth session.
Thanks for the day
Alice, you sponsored me on 6 March: a great, big thank you. I know a couple of Alices – and I’m not sure which one to address my thanks to. Please get in touch and let me know.
Further thanks go to Sainsbury’s Loughborough for kindly donating a sweepstake prize: a bottle of wine.
Fear for the day
On Sunday, SG and I are running a 20-mile race. This will be the furthest I’ll have run to date. So, I'll be spending half the weekend feeling terrified and the other half, recovering. I’ll let you know how we get on in next week’s post – if I am still in possession of all my faculties.
Anyway, onward: shoes, socks, shirts and stuff.
The more miles I’ve run, the more I have come to appreciate the importance of having appropriate footwear and clothing. You can spend upwards of a small fortune on your kit*, but there are some things I have invested in for which I am thoroughly grateful.
* See also Gadgets and gizmos, 22 February.
I am not a shopaholic. I loathe dragging around the shops and trawling the internet looking for new clothes. I think that my DNA simply lacks the shopping gene common to so many of my sex. It just isn’t a fun leisure activity for me – I’d rather run a marathon.
[Irony – don’t you just love it?]
I can safely say that until I took up this running lark I had never spent so much money on clothes and shoes – and branded stuff to boot.
So these days, I’m looking pretty chic in a breathable, high-vis, waterproof, windproof, man-made-fibre ensemble topped off with a very fetching woolly hat, depending on how cold and damp it is.
Just glad we do most of our training under the cover of darkness.
Footwear is very important to me. I hail from a sub-species of hobbit. We are small of stature; given to rotundity; youthful looking; and have disproportionately large, furry feet. So, I have to choose my trainers with care.
I’m an ASICS girl. They are the best fit I’ve found and, given how many miles I put in each week, seem pretty hard-wearing. Plus I’ve had comparatively few problems when breaking in new shoes. Always a boon given that even my leathery plates begin to suffer on the long-haul.
Currently, I have two pairs – not quite Imelda Marcos, then – road-runners and cross-country tractors. Cynic that I am, I have to admit to being surprised by what a difference the latter* have made to running through the woods and along country tracks. I still look like an eejit on ice, but do manage to refrain from landing with a splish and a splosh in every muddy puddle – just every other. * A big thank you to my sponsors – Mum, Dad and CM’s Mum – for the birthday pennies that paid for them.
I may invest in a second pair of road shoes prior to the Big One. Even the roughest of sums – and mine always are, maths not being my strong point – suggest that the current ones will be 600-miles-old by 17 April. I think I may need something with a little more life and bounce left in them to help me stumble through the streets of London.
Let’s face it, I’ll need all the help I can get.
I prefer to run in knee-length shorts, but in November I admitted defeat and defected to long trousers, Grommit. I feel like a cross between Minnie Mouse and Bob Parr –The Incredibles.
When I bought them they seemed spot on: black, zipped back pocket for keys and tissues, snug for that all-important aerodynamic fit, reflective go-faster stripes – the works.
A few washes later and putting them on is like dragging 10cm of elastic up the length of Nelson’s Column.
It is a battle of vertically opposed forces and great stealth on my behalf. I start sitting down. Once my feet are in, I hurriedly zip the ankles and stand up, heaving with all my might as I go, tie the waistband so tight I can barely breathe – not ideal for running – and then gingerly let go, praying they will ping neither up nor down.
If I can manage a couple of squats without uncoiling in an uncontrolled manner at a million metres per second like a demented jack-in-the-box, I’m generally good to go. And usually after about 10 miles or so they tend to ease up and I’m actually able to bend at the knee.
Top-wise, I go for the layered look: during the winter – the more the better. You can always take things off and tie them round your middle should you overheat. I start with a base layer of a breathable duvet and work from there.
Accessory-wise, this season I’m mostly sporting my Nike+ SportBand along with plenty of Micropore strapping for injured toes and blistered insteps.
One last thing I simply could not live without – Vanish. Although it is no doubt completely environmentally-unfriendly and goes against all my green principles, it is the only thing I’ve found that is able to shift mud and the lingering odour from my 1,000 mile socks.
Still – at this time of year, Sundays usually find me on the allotment, digging and barrowing muck about. So, my running look is actually pretty hot in comparison.
Please visit my fundraising page at
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