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Thursday, 5th September

So after I hit the 6 mile mark in the marathon, I knew I would be up against it carrying a 2 stone object for the next 20 miles. What made it worse was that I couldn’t put it on my back, and I had to carry it one handed.

The next 8 miles wasn’t too bad, but soon after I hit tower bridge I started to feel it much more. Believe it or not, you can run 14-15 miles in the London marathon and there are huge amounts of people right in front of you, to the side and right behind you, I found at the 16 mile stage things began to space out a bit and you tended to be in groups of 5-6 runners instead of about 200!!

What got me to mile 20 was the abundance of people still shouting at you to carry on, even speed up! You have your name written on your vest and number so everyone knows your name!

By 20 miles, my shoulders felt as bad as my legs because the pie was still in one hand at a time, my legs were feeling very bad because the extra weight was being transferred to my legs too.

From 20 miles onwards, I felt every single mile took A LOT longer somehow! Each mile was dreadfully painful and long, and nothing could get rid of the pain and tiredness, and even at the late stage 0f 24-25 miles, I saw the odd person collapse, or get injured, or simply couldn’t go any further, their dream ruined for the day and year.

What keeps you going from mile 20-26, known as the “wall”, was the much bigger again crowd support! I actually knew one or two people in the crowd and when the roads open up again, you know you aren’t far from the finishing line! This is a massive lift, let me tell you!

The 20-26 mile area is the hardest emotionally, as you really want to stop, you may lose a couple of toe nails, you may have very painful blisters, and everything will be aching like never before, but the crowd are the biggest part of the equation getting you through, anyone who has taken part will tell you all that!

This is also when your training plan comes into its own, this is when all the good preparation really counts and gets you home in one piece!!

Twitt
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Thursday, 29th August

Following on from the story yesterday, and the difficult path the lady in question initially went on, and I am talking about strictly following the ludicrous book called “run a marathon in 26 weeks”.

It should have been retitled “run a marathon in 26 weeks as long as you can put up with severe blisters, a wrecked back, very painful knees and the most miserable time of your life”, but maybe that title is too long, but still the truth for individuals living in the real world!

Back to the story, we got the lady on a twice a week, Monday and Thursday running schedule, with a lot of walk/run sessions to start with. She did the usual inside workout on Tuesday and Friday, the rest were rest days.

Then 15 yard runs soon became 30, 60, 120 yards run, and the rest period of 40 yards soon become down to 10 to 15. Then the elation of being able to run for 5 minutes without stopping was almost uncontrollable. The lady wanted to run different days and more days I mean by that, but we resisted that urge and get the running to Monday and Thursday.

As soon as she was able to run 15 minutes in one go (which took around 6 weeks), we did then start splitting the runs up.

On Monday we kept to the endurance runs meaning our aim now was to be able for 30 minutes, which we got to in the next 6 weeks.

The Thursday session became an interval session, meaning using lampposts for markers. You run for one lamppost, walk for the next, run for the next, walk for the next and so on. You soon become incredibly out of breath with this way of training, but it gets your lung capacity going unlike anything else. The goal eventually is to sprint for one lamppost, jog the next, sprint the next, jog the next and so on.

This way of running brings an awful lot of results very quickly, but is difficult and your sessions wont last very long to begin with. With practice though, you will be surprised how your distance covered lengthens and your recovery improves.

So it was endurance on Monday, the interval session would be on Thursday and its at this exact stage that this lady was really motoring and rapidly improving.

More tomorrow on how she improved greatly from here!

Twitt
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Wednesday, 28th August

Catherine asked a great question about marathons, and how to become a good runner in the first place, or become A runner of some description, run longer than a couple of minutes would be an achievement for many people I have started with the last couple of years.

As I said yesterday, I have one lady about to do a marathon but I have had MANY who have been through the same challenge and each a different story to tell.

Before we get into all of that, and the problems and challenges that the 26.2 miles presents, its vital you start at the beginning. You either do it the proper way or it’s like reading a book and going straight to the back of the book to find out the ending, because you couldn’t be bothered to read the book!

Some people have started off better than others, and doing it your own way is frought with danger.

I remember one lady really wanted to become a good runner, or even be able to run for ONE MINUTE was an achievement, she wasn’t overweight whatsoever and in some disciplines, had a reasonable level of fitness.

The first thing I told her was to buy running shoes, and change them every 500 miles (I tell everyone this).

I then took her out running and the best she could do was run for around 15 yards, then she had to walk until she got her breath back. She would walk for 40 yards, then run 15 again, then walk for 40, run for 15 etc.

This lasted for around 20 minutes and she was really tired, felt more than a little frustrated but explained this was the best way to go. This session was on a Monday lunch time.

I gave her other exercises to do on Tuesday inside, rest Wednesday, and to try the same run/walk Thursday. Inside exercises again on Saturday after a Friday rest.

When I saw her the next Monday, I could tell things had gone badly wrong.

Number one she hadn’t changed her trainers, she was still wearing the thinly supported “fashion” trainers.

Number two she had tried to run EVERY night!

Two things happened as they usually do following this schedule, she had blisters due to poor trainers, she pulled a calf muscle due to overdoing it, and when I saw her she was almost in tears fearing she would never run again.

I asked her why she didn’t follow my schedule and admitted she followed a book her brother had bought her (to encourage her).

It was called “run a marathon in 26 weeks”, claiming you could run a marathon in 26 weeks. This may be technically possible with perfect conditions and support for 1 in a 1000 people, but I can assure you I HAVE NEVER SEEN IT!!!

I soon had it out with her and told her to throw away the book, as its going to permanently injure her if she keeps to that impossible schedule!

It turned out to be the best thing she ever did, and she went on to reach an incredible standard which I will fill you on tomorrow!

Twitt
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Wednesday, 14th August

We talk all the time about the importance of trying to keep improving your physical performances, how about improving your eating habits?!!

When someone starts off with me for the first time, I like to guide them into things gently or you are likely to ask far too much off individuals in a short period of time.

An easy start for me to give someone is to make just one minor improvement per week.

The usual one I ask for is to try and eat breakfast every day. Believe it or not, most people I bump into tend not to eat breakfast at all, or eat something full of sugar or saturated fat, or most likely both!

So to get to eat the individual to eat well every day all day is quite unrealistic.

Making small changes each and every week will lead to a monumental change over just
six weeks!

Then I move onto the subject of properly hydrating one’s self. If someone can just drink more water throughout the day, then I know that this change alone will make such a difference to the person concerned. They will feel better, look better, burn more body fat and perform better in their workouts full stop.

Then I move onto sleep. Making the effort to get to bed earlier, especially in the week is paramount in order to recover from exercise, and set yourself up for the next day again.

Next is lunch and evening meal. You need to put healthy protein sources in there for your meal, healthy slow-burning carbs and a healthy array of vegetables. These meals can be similar (unless you have a packed lunch when wholemeal bread/pittas are likely to be choice of the day).

Then the snacks come into observation and how you are powering yourself through the day in terms of energy. Natural snacks such as fruit, dried fruit, nuts etc will work for you far better than sugary/fatty snacks every time!

This is a very brief description of the small changes you need to undertake to look and feel your best, so up to you when you implement all of this to get results as soon as possible!

Twitt