5/1/16 – Weight of the World
I’m not one for making New Year’s resolutions but this year I have two:
- To complete the London Marathon by whatever (legitimate) means possible.
- To lose some weight to make No.1 easier.
To get Number 2 out of the way first, I weighed on New Year’s Day after the double parkrun and was 15 stone 5 and half. Around 2 stone over what I managed to get down to before. Not great, but I was surprised that the Christmas excesses had only appeared to result in a 3 pound gain (last couple of years it’s been closer to a stone, which mercifully fell away quickly each time). Sue was quick to puncture my smugness reminding me that I was probably very dehydrated after the runs. We’ll see, dear, we’ll see.
In addition to losing some chunk in order to achieve No.1, we will both be trying to stick to a recognised Marathon training plan, or in our case, a cross between a Beginner and Intermediate plan. The Beginner plan is what it says on the tin, for complete Marathon novices, whereas the Intermediate is for people who done at least a Half Marathon and are looking to kick on.
Between us, Sue and I have done some Half Marathons and stuck to similar plans (fairly loosely, it must be said) and they have stood us in good stead. Looking at the Intermediate Marathon plans though, it struck us that to hold down busy jobs and commit the time and energy required to stick strictly to the plan would leave us with about 5 hours sleep a night. Thus we’ve come up with a hybrid between the two: doing the longer distances on Sunday’s, but keep the midweek training more manageable time-wise.
Monday was the first day of tour 16 week plan and started, rather bizarrely I felt, with a rest day! Our day of rest, however, was spent sorting local Gym memberships out so we were able to feel a little bit virtuous.
Tuesday was the first proper day of the plan and started with an ‘easy’ 30 minute run. Well within our capabilities, apart from the fact – bang on cue – I woke up with the beginnings of a cold and sore throat. We all take the mickey out of Jim, who – without fail – will come down with a purely psychosomatic collection of ailments in the days before a gig. This time, however, the joke was on me.
Please God, just don’t let it develop into the fortnight of coughing and spluttering that followed Sue’s innocuous pre-Christmas sore throat. I decided to run anyway, convincing myself that it would do me good.
With my recent running having been conducted mainly on far from glorious mud, I figured that at least the pavement would prove easier. Mind you, this ‘cross-country builds stamina’ malarkey that I mentioned the other day doesn’t seem to work for me. Saturday’s Lloyd parkrun was my worst-ever: 35:40 – I’m know beginning to sound like a stuck record about ‘the mud being the worst I’ve ever seen it’, but it was true. No sign of this fabled stamina helping me to power through there then. That said, I did end up in a sprint finish with Ewa, my Lloyd’s ‘nemesis’, just edging her by a second or two, so maybe there was something left in legs after all.
I’ve always been envious of Ewa’s ability to maintain a very steady, composed pace and have have used her pace as benchmark and trying to marshall my more erratic speed to stay in front of her. I think, in recent months, it’s been ‘honours even’ in terms of who reaches the funnel first. I’ve always thought that the nemesis tag was one way, but afterwards as we both got our breath back, she admitted that it was more of a mutual thing that I realise.
Back to Tuesday though and the ‘easy’ run. After a long stretching warm-up, I decided to stick to the classic 5k course, but given my nascent head cold decided to leave the ‘lamp-post’ tactic for another day. It was supposed to be an easy run after all – I didn’t feel at my peak whilst running and the 31:50 time confirmed, but there were no muscle or joint pain whilst running and I’m always happy about that. The run HAD done me some good after all…
Well, until the evening, when the headcold really kicked in and the flu-ey joint aches began. Looks like I am going to have a lot to ‘thank’ my wife for over the next couple of weeks. Grrr.