So after all the months of preparation, the marathon is now over. I was pretty pleased with the run in the end. I was more happy with the finishing position of 15th than the time of 2:19:05. It wasn't quite the personal best time I was hoping for (I was 31secs short) but if you'd told me 9 weeks ago when I was out of action with an achilles injury and unable to train that I would get that result I'd definitely have taken it.
The London Marathon has been labelled the biggest race in the world, to finish 15th in that was one of the best experiences of my running career. I'm fully aware that on many other years my time would not have placed me as highly but it was such an experience knowing there were only 14 runners out on the road ahead of me as I was coming down Birdcage Walk at 25 miles.
Of course I had gone there with the intention of trying to improve my personal best and I knew that if I could improve it by 35secs I would have a qualifying time for the Commonwealth Games and European Championships. I also knew that to be selected for either of these teams it would probably take a fair bit more than just getting inside the 2:18:00 qualifying time so I just concentrated on running at a realistic pace which I think helped me rather than taking a risk at chasing a qualifying spot as several of my rivals did and really suffered for it in the closing stages.
The final week was as follows
Mon - 9 miles inc 3 miles at target marathon pace - 15:37, 5:12 per mile average. The usual pre-marathon feeling could I keep this going for 26.2 miles - of course I wont have done 14 miles the day before and a race 2 days before!
Tue - am 6 miles easy, pm 8 miles easy
Wed - 7 miles including 8x400m very easy on the track with about 75secs rest. 68s for each 400m.
Thu - 5 miles easy
Fri - REST
Sat - 4 miles easy
Sun - 2 miles very easy before breakfast. London Marathon!
One thing people I have spoken to since the marathon cannot get their heads around is that I didnt take on any water, energy drinks or gels during the race. I am a firm believer that if you are properly fuelled you don't need it.
I decided to follow the carbohydrate depletion and loading diet as it has worked well for me before. Basically this involves NO CARBS for 48 hours during which time you need to run approx 25 miles in total to bleed the system dry then move onto a heavily carbohydrate based diet.
My last carb meal before depletion was breakfast on Tuesday - a large bowl of muesli and some toast. For the next 48 hours I basically followed an Atkins Diet eating cheese omelettes, steaks, chicken with veg, etc. By the time I had finished my run on Thursday morning I had ran 26 miles in 48 hours with no carbs and was ready to start the loading phase. For 48 hours this just involved getting in pasta, bread, rice, etc. Fish and Chips is my standard pre race meal two days out from a race so this became part of the loading and is a great meal to throw into this phase. I always ask for them to make me lightly battered fish so that the meal is not too fatty. On the Saturday I dont like to eat too heavily so just have a fairly basic diet - beans/egg on toast at breakfast, sandwiches for lunch and a light pasta dinner. I also drink PSP22 energy drink in the final 48 hours.
I believe that a lot of people do not fuel correctly before a marathon and that is why they run into trouble in the later stages. Of course you have to have the training right as well!!
Since the marathon I have been resting and trying to maintain some fitness by running sporadically. I took 4 rest days in the week after the marathon. I have been going down to the track to see my coach and training group and on two occasions have got involved with pacing some sessions for some of the guys in the middle and back of the group which I think has helped me recover quickly and I have really enjoyed doing this. I won't be doing any serious training until next week so I'm enjoying this leisurely perios while I can!
Wednesday 5 May 2010
Sunday 11 April 2010
Taper Time!
It is now 14 days until the London Marathon which means TAPER TIME!! All of the long runs are done. All of the hard repetition sessions are done. All of the weeks of three figure mileage are done. It's time to freshen up and concentrate on staying healthy.
There isn't anything else I can do now to improve my fitness. All of the work has been done over the previous 8 weeks. Well actually I look at it a little differently nowadays. I have trained for ten marathons previously and been running for 18 years now with many weeks over 100 miles going as high as 136. Any fitness I have hasn't just come from the last 8 weeks, it's an accumulation of years of work. I hit probably my best ever period of form in the early part of this winter off an enforced period of much reduced mileage and have realised that I have so many miles in my 'bank' that it's no longer optimum for me to do as many miles as my body can handle. I think a mistake I made in my last 2 or 3 build ups was taking the 'more is better' approach which brought me great results in my early years. So I have dropped down to a slightly lower mileage, withe the viewpoint that now is the time to 'cash in' on what I have in my 'bank'.
Looking back over the previous 8 weeks, everything has gone as I would have hoped. I haven't had any stonkingly good races but that is normal for me if I am on schedule, my last race was my half marathon which only fell 5 weeks into my build up and 66:54 compared well to the 67:24 I ran on the same course en route to my marathon PB. If all goes well, I should feel three weeks out that I am coming into peak form. And the signs in my final week of hard training are that I am.
Today's 17 mile run concluded a 100 mile training week. There were two key workouts this week. 12x600m with a 200m jog recovery on Tuesday and 6 x 1 mile with 2mins rest on Saturday. The target for Tuesday's session was to run 1:41s and my average time was 1:41 despite feeling pretty jaded from a hard weekend last week. Saturday was a repeat of the same session I did the previous weekend where I clocked 4:52, 4:42, 4:40, 4:39, 4:42, 4:52. I felt this was a good session but wanted to be more consistent across the six reps. I panicked when the first rep this week was ran in 4:35. But this was followed with 4:36, 4:34, 4:33, 4:37, 4:42. I'd probably rank this as the best training session I've ever done. I've done the exact same session in the run up to 10k personal bests and not hit those sort of times.
The session leaves me very confident coming into the marathon but it's at this point you question whether you've got your training right as other people start telling you what they have been doing. There are many ways to train for a marathon and I have great trust in my coach and the training plan we set out which was based on past experiences (positive and negative!) and has gone exactly to script. And I guess that's what I have to look at and concentrate on myself and my own preparations and not get concerned about other people's preparations and how they may or may not differ from mine.
I briefly mentioned at the start of this update about 'staying healthy'. This means several things.
1. NOT overdoing the training over the final two weeks. The daily mileage over the next three days will probably be fairly similar to what I've been doing but there wont be any gruelling repetition sessions. Instead there will be a couple of 'half' sessions where I reduce the volume of reps and increase the recovery but dont run any quicker - the idea being to get some pace in the legs but come away feeling like I've done next to nothing and not take anything away.
2. NOT easing off too much! You need to strike a balance between not overdoing it and not doing too little. a 30% reduction in mileage this week is probably about right and a little bit more on marathon race week. For me, my last two weeks have been 109 and 100 miles. I intend my final two weeks to be approx 70 and 60 (NOTE! this figure includes the marathon!)
3. Eating right! As you drop your mileage, theres a danger you may put on weight. It's easy especially on race week to take the carbohydrate loading too far and over-eat. I have done this before and the result is inevitable. Cut out the crap from your diet and eat regular meals but reduce portion size a touch! You dont need a bowl of pasta the size of your head!
4. Avoid illness and injury! As you back off the mileage, you are prone to infections and injury niggles as the body starts to wonder what's going on! Avoid people who are ill, don't eat anything out of the ordinary especially a new restaurant! Eat well (see no.3 above) and make sure you get a regular sleep of 8-10 hours. A massage on race week may be useful, but don't get it too close as it's good not to be too supple! 4 days out is about right I find.
5. Avoid booze! I like a drink as much as the next man but big nights out in the final two weeks are a no-no. If you normally have a couple of beers 3 times a week, that's fine to keep doing that.
6. Don't knacker yourself out! Lifestyle choices on race week are important. Don't get stressed leaving everything to the last minute at work and doing an 11 hour shift! Try to avoid doing anything other than resting, eating/hydrating and a short jog or 2 in the final two days. The worst thing you can do is go sightseeing or shopping in the final two days and walk 4 to 5 miles in doing so. I have made this mistake before!
7. Stay well hydrated! Probably the most important of the lot - especially on race week. The hydration process starts from 7 days before. If you are insufficiently hydrated 24 hours before the race you will not be correctly hydrated on race day! Have a large bottle of water with you at all times on race week. In the final two days, add a carboloading mix such as PSP22 so you can carboload without eating too much.
To anybody taking part in the marathon, good luck! Next weeks blog will have some further tips for race day itself.
There isn't anything else I can do now to improve my fitness. All of the work has been done over the previous 8 weeks. Well actually I look at it a little differently nowadays. I have trained for ten marathons previously and been running for 18 years now with many weeks over 100 miles going as high as 136. Any fitness I have hasn't just come from the last 8 weeks, it's an accumulation of years of work. I hit probably my best ever period of form in the early part of this winter off an enforced period of much reduced mileage and have realised that I have so many miles in my 'bank' that it's no longer optimum for me to do as many miles as my body can handle. I think a mistake I made in my last 2 or 3 build ups was taking the 'more is better' approach which brought me great results in my early years. So I have dropped down to a slightly lower mileage, withe the viewpoint that now is the time to 'cash in' on what I have in my 'bank'.
Looking back over the previous 8 weeks, everything has gone as I would have hoped. I haven't had any stonkingly good races but that is normal for me if I am on schedule, my last race was my half marathon which only fell 5 weeks into my build up and 66:54 compared well to the 67:24 I ran on the same course en route to my marathon PB. If all goes well, I should feel three weeks out that I am coming into peak form. And the signs in my final week of hard training are that I am.
Today's 17 mile run concluded a 100 mile training week. There were two key workouts this week. 12x600m with a 200m jog recovery on Tuesday and 6 x 1 mile with 2mins rest on Saturday. The target for Tuesday's session was to run 1:41s and my average time was 1:41 despite feeling pretty jaded from a hard weekend last week. Saturday was a repeat of the same session I did the previous weekend where I clocked 4:52, 4:42, 4:40, 4:39, 4:42, 4:52. I felt this was a good session but wanted to be more consistent across the six reps. I panicked when the first rep this week was ran in 4:35. But this was followed with 4:36, 4:34, 4:33, 4:37, 4:42. I'd probably rank this as the best training session I've ever done. I've done the exact same session in the run up to 10k personal bests and not hit those sort of times.
The session leaves me very confident coming into the marathon but it's at this point you question whether you've got your training right as other people start telling you what they have been doing. There are many ways to train for a marathon and I have great trust in my coach and the training plan we set out which was based on past experiences (positive and negative!) and has gone exactly to script. And I guess that's what I have to look at and concentrate on myself and my own preparations and not get concerned about other people's preparations and how they may or may not differ from mine.
I briefly mentioned at the start of this update about 'staying healthy'. This means several things.
1. NOT overdoing the training over the final two weeks. The daily mileage over the next three days will probably be fairly similar to what I've been doing but there wont be any gruelling repetition sessions. Instead there will be a couple of 'half' sessions where I reduce the volume of reps and increase the recovery but dont run any quicker - the idea being to get some pace in the legs but come away feeling like I've done next to nothing and not take anything away.
2. NOT easing off too much! You need to strike a balance between not overdoing it and not doing too little. a 30% reduction in mileage this week is probably about right and a little bit more on marathon race week. For me, my last two weeks have been 109 and 100 miles. I intend my final two weeks to be approx 70 and 60 (NOTE! this figure includes the marathon!)
3. Eating right! As you drop your mileage, theres a danger you may put on weight. It's easy especially on race week to take the carbohydrate loading too far and over-eat. I have done this before and the result is inevitable. Cut out the crap from your diet and eat regular meals but reduce portion size a touch! You dont need a bowl of pasta the size of your head!
4. Avoid illness and injury! As you back off the mileage, you are prone to infections and injury niggles as the body starts to wonder what's going on! Avoid people who are ill, don't eat anything out of the ordinary especially a new restaurant! Eat well (see no.3 above) and make sure you get a regular sleep of 8-10 hours. A massage on race week may be useful, but don't get it too close as it's good not to be too supple! 4 days out is about right I find.
5. Avoid booze! I like a drink as much as the next man but big nights out in the final two weeks are a no-no. If you normally have a couple of beers 3 times a week, that's fine to keep doing that.
6. Don't knacker yourself out! Lifestyle choices on race week are important. Don't get stressed leaving everything to the last minute at work and doing an 11 hour shift! Try to avoid doing anything other than resting, eating/hydrating and a short jog or 2 in the final two days. The worst thing you can do is go sightseeing or shopping in the final two days and walk 4 to 5 miles in doing so. I have made this mistake before!
7. Stay well hydrated! Probably the most important of the lot - especially on race week. The hydration process starts from 7 days before. If you are insufficiently hydrated 24 hours before the race you will not be correctly hydrated on race day! Have a large bottle of water with you at all times on race week. In the final two days, add a carboloading mix such as PSP22 so you can carboload without eating too much.
To anybody taking part in the marathon, good luck! Next weeks blog will have some further tips for race day itself.
Sunday 28 March 2010
What a difference a week makes!!
I have to admit to feeling a little dejected this week. That poor race at the Northern Road Relays last Sunday really hit me hard. As I touched on in my last blog, I know exactly what the problem was and that was quite simply a case of overtraining. I'm fortunate enough to have an experienced and knowledgeable coach in Norman Poole, who is quick to see the telltale signs and knew exactly what I needed to do to get me right again.
We'd taken a gamble on training through the race as we agreed the result wasn't important in the overall scheme of things but it still hits you hard when you've had a crap result and you've been giving it everything! Looking back, training through the race was essential with the marathon ahead and I just have to put it behind me. What I needed this week was to regroup: get my legs back together and get some confidence back because apart from last weekend, everything has been going swimmingly well!
A very easy training week indeed started with a very slow 9 miler on Monday to try to recover. Felt tonnes better on Tuesday starting slow and then picking up on my first run of 6 miles. Then I did a nice steady 12 miler in the evening with Andy and Pete Riley and we were clipping along quite nicely with most of the run at sub 6:30 miling. Wednesday we were on the track at Wythenshawe Park and my session was 5x800m at 5k race pace with a 2min rest. The last two ended up being 2-3secs quicker than 5k pace but it felt pretty good. Then it was just easy running (7 miles Thursday, 4 miles Saturday) and resting up (Friday) for Sunday's Wilmslow Half Marathon. This race included the England Half Marathon Championships.
What a difference a week makes. After feeling so rotten last week and getting such a shocking result, I needed the opposite this week. As mentioned last time, I'm pretty philosophical about Half Marathons in the run up to a marathon with my two best times of 65:24 and 65:50 achieved en route to 2:21 clockings, whereas my best two marathons 2:18:34 and 2:18:53 have come on the back of 66:19 and 67:24. My logic is that I started my marathon training too early for those halfs and my end product is now better as I peak for the right race! I said last week that anything under 67 would show me that I'm where I need to be.
A very easy training week indeed started with a very slow 9 miler on Monday to try to recover. Felt tonnes better on Tuesday starting slow and then picking up on my first run of 6 miles. Then I did a nice steady 12 miler in the evening with Andy and Pete Riley and we were clipping along quite nicely with most of the run at sub 6:30 miling. Wednesday we were on the track at Wythenshawe Park and my session was 5x800m at 5k race pace with a 2min rest. The last two ended up being 2-3secs quicker than 5k pace but it felt pretty good. Then it was just easy running (7 miles Thursday, 4 miles Saturday) and resting up (Friday) for Sunday's Wilmslow Half Marathon. This race included the England Half Marathon Championships.
What a difference a week makes. After feeling so rotten last week and getting such a shocking result, I needed the opposite this week. As mentioned last time, I'm pretty philosophical about Half Marathons in the run up to a marathon with my two best times of 65:24 and 65:50 achieved en route to 2:21 clockings, whereas my best two marathons 2:18:34 and 2:18:53 have come on the back of 66:19 and 67:24. My logic is that I started my marathon training too early for those halfs and my end product is now better as I peak for the right race! I said last week that anything under 67 would show me that I'm where I need to be.
I was also conscious that with me starting my build up for London later than planned that I want to be able to get some good training in over the next two weeks so didn't want to completely trash myself.
I set off in the 67:00 group and the first 5 miles just flew by, in total contrast to last week I was so relaxed, happily sharing conversation with another runner who was running at target marathon pace, singing (!) and acknowledging some of the spectators I recognised. This is just how I wanted to feel and it was bloody fantastic!! The miles went by so much faster than usual and what was an incredibly large group at 4 miles was whittled down to 4 of us at 9 miles. At this stage I was in 12th position but moved into a finishing position of 6th place with my 13th mile my fastest of the race. My finishing time of 66:54 was pretty much spot on what I was looking for, the huge bonus was that it felt so comfortable and it's left me buzzing again.
Thursday 25 March 2010
One month to go!!
My training is all currently geared towards the Virgin London Marathon, which is taking place on Sunday April 25th. Training has been going well, everything has gone pretty much to plan so far with the biggest mileage weeks out of the way and the focus now switching from lots of marathon paced running to road racing and some faster 5k and 10k paced sessions.
I have completed seven marathons now and trained for another three (two DNFs and a DNS) and so I have a fair bit of experience and have learnt some things the hard way. I was only 23 when I ran my first marathon in 2002 and it was a euphoric experience, a pleasing debut of 2:21:01. I ran the next five London Marathons improving one second in 2003 (!) then running 2:18:53 in 2004 and then my personal best 2:18:34 in 2005. I was beginning to wonder what all the fuss was about as I'd never really had any bad experiences, but as the body has got older, I have found it more difficult to withstand the training. In 2006, I ran my slowest London 2:23:26 in a tremedous amount of pain, later to be diagnosed as a double hernia! My last attempt at a London was in 2007 when I succumbed to the warm conditions and withdrew from the race at halfway.
But it is more recently that I have had my biggest problems. An attempted return to the marathon in 2008 ended in disaster when a niggle I carried into the Florence Marathon caused me to develop cramp early in the race and I again withdrew midrace. And then an attempt at training for the Loch Ness Marathon was going very well until I developed bursitis on my heel and I was forced to withdraw. This injury has come and gone ever since and I'm currently undergoing twice weekly physio at Athlete Matters in Worsley. The injury recurred badly in February and meant that I started my build up for London a week later than I'd hoped but I've since managed to keep on top of it so far.
The injury forced me to reduce my usual training load for the first part of the winter and this coincided with probably my best ever spell of racing with a 10k personal best, the best race of my life at the UK Cross Challenge in Liverpool plus an England International vest at Cross Country. Given how well I raced off much lower mileage for a long period of time and the years of high mileage I have accumulated, I am not afraid now to lower my mileage for the final 4-5 weeks of my marathon build up and regain those fresh legs now that I have topped them up with a good block of training. And boy do they need freshening!
Starting late meant I have piled a lot of work into the last five weeks and I've been treading that fine line between improving fitness and overcooking it. I crossed that line last week, attempting to train through the Northern Road Relays which I was taking part in for my club Altrincham & District AC. Coming into Sunday's relay I had racked up 105 miles in 7 days with a 20 mile race the previous Sunday, a 17 mile run on the Thursday and a testing session of 8x1000m at 10k race pace with a couple of hill sprint sessions thrown in for good measure. It's easy to see why I felt so rough and had such a poor performance (uncharacteristic of me recently) but there have been many instances in the past of me being able to absorb this level of training, and myself and my coach Norman Poole felt that it was a gamble we would take.
A great example of this is when I was training for Loch Ness last summer. I ran the Morpeth 10k race in the middle of a 113 mile training week expecting a fairly easy ride and ended up finishing 3rd in 31:10. Two weeks later with fresher legs, I ran a 10k on the track in 29:55. I think the key is to recognise when you have crossed that line and back off accordingly, so I look on Sunday's poor run as an amber traffic light!
This Sunday is the Wilmslow Half Marathon, which incorporates the England Athletics Half Marathon Championships. I am pretty philosophical about Half Marathons before a marathon. I have ran 65mins twice for a half marathon (2002 and 2003), with a 2:21 marathon clocking following on both occasions. Yet my 2:18s came on the back of a 66:19 and a 67:24. The reason behind this I feel is that I started much earlier in 2002 and 2003 and probably peaked for the Half Marathon whereas when I ran my 2:18s off slower half times having started my marathon training a month later.
For this reason, I won't be heading into Wilmslow anticipating a personal best time. Based on the above, anything under 67mins will tell me that I am well on course. But after such a poor race last weekend, I really don't want to be too far outside 67 and feeling like I'm killing myself in doing so.
I have completed seven marathons now and trained for another three (two DNFs and a DNS) and so I have a fair bit of experience and have learnt some things the hard way. I was only 23 when I ran my first marathon in 2002 and it was a euphoric experience, a pleasing debut of 2:21:01. I ran the next five London Marathons improving one second in 2003 (!) then running 2:18:53 in 2004 and then my personal best 2:18:34 in 2005. I was beginning to wonder what all the fuss was about as I'd never really had any bad experiences, but as the body has got older, I have found it more difficult to withstand the training. In 2006, I ran my slowest London 2:23:26 in a tremedous amount of pain, later to be diagnosed as a double hernia! My last attempt at a London was in 2007 when I succumbed to the warm conditions and withdrew from the race at halfway.
But it is more recently that I have had my biggest problems. An attempted return to the marathon in 2008 ended in disaster when a niggle I carried into the Florence Marathon caused me to develop cramp early in the race and I again withdrew midrace. And then an attempt at training for the Loch Ness Marathon was going very well until I developed bursitis on my heel and I was forced to withdraw. This injury has come and gone ever since and I'm currently undergoing twice weekly physio at Athlete Matters in Worsley. The injury recurred badly in February and meant that I started my build up for London a week later than I'd hoped but I've since managed to keep on top of it so far.
The injury forced me to reduce my usual training load for the first part of the winter and this coincided with probably my best ever spell of racing with a 10k personal best, the best race of my life at the UK Cross Challenge in Liverpool plus an England International vest at Cross Country. Given how well I raced off much lower mileage for a long period of time and the years of high mileage I have accumulated, I am not afraid now to lower my mileage for the final 4-5 weeks of my marathon build up and regain those fresh legs now that I have topped them up with a good block of training. And boy do they need freshening!
Starting late meant I have piled a lot of work into the last five weeks and I've been treading that fine line between improving fitness and overcooking it. I crossed that line last week, attempting to train through the Northern Road Relays which I was taking part in for my club Altrincham & District AC. Coming into Sunday's relay I had racked up 105 miles in 7 days with a 20 mile race the previous Sunday, a 17 mile run on the Thursday and a testing session of 8x1000m at 10k race pace with a couple of hill sprint sessions thrown in for good measure. It's easy to see why I felt so rough and had such a poor performance (uncharacteristic of me recently) but there have been many instances in the past of me being able to absorb this level of training, and myself and my coach Norman Poole felt that it was a gamble we would take.
A great example of this is when I was training for Loch Ness last summer. I ran the Morpeth 10k race in the middle of a 113 mile training week expecting a fairly easy ride and ended up finishing 3rd in 31:10. Two weeks later with fresher legs, I ran a 10k on the track in 29:55. I think the key is to recognise when you have crossed that line and back off accordingly, so I look on Sunday's poor run as an amber traffic light!
This Sunday is the Wilmslow Half Marathon, which incorporates the England Athletics Half Marathon Championships. I am pretty philosophical about Half Marathons before a marathon. I have ran 65mins twice for a half marathon (2002 and 2003), with a 2:21 marathon clocking following on both occasions. Yet my 2:18s came on the back of a 66:19 and a 67:24. The reason behind this I feel is that I started much earlier in 2002 and 2003 and probably peaked for the Half Marathon whereas when I ran my 2:18s off slower half times having started my marathon training a month later.
For this reason, I won't be heading into Wilmslow anticipating a personal best time. Based on the above, anything under 67mins will tell me that I am well on course. But after such a poor race last weekend, I really don't want to be too far outside 67 and feeling like I'm killing myself in doing so.
The story so far
If I was to try to talk you through my 18 years of competitive running so far, I could be here for quite some time. Fortunately, the internet is such a wonderful resource now. There is one excellent website, The Power of 10, which allows you to search any athlete and lists all of their race performances, provided they have met the site's qualifying criteria.
Link to my past race performances and personal best times.
For the last few years, I have been recording all of my training and racing on the Eightlane website. Click here to view my past training logs.
One of the reasons I decided to start blogging and posting my training on the internet is because I think that my story can offer inspiration to juniors and young seniors who aren't at the top but have the desire to progress and achieve what they can. The very first race result I have a copy of at home was an U15 boys race within the South East Lancs Cross Country League. I finished 48th out of 52. My first National Cross Country Championship was 1998 where I finished 52nd in the U20 race, the following year I was 29th and since then I have ran in every National with finishing positions of 96th, 72nd, 18th, 23rd, 27th, 37th, 29th, 18th, 27th and 18th. It was only this year that at the age of 31 I finally represented England at Cross Country. Consistency has been key - I haven't had more than six successive days off since 1996 and as I have slowly improved, I have believed in myself more and more. I still don't think of myself as talented or elite but work very hard and know that when I am running well I can compete with all but a handful of runners in the UK. If just one young athlete reading this takes some inspiration from this then writing this blog will be worthwhile.
Link to my past race performances and personal best times.
For the last few years, I have been recording all of my training and racing on the Eightlane website. Click here to view my past training logs.
One of the reasons I decided to start blogging and posting my training on the internet is because I think that my story can offer inspiration to juniors and young seniors who aren't at the top but have the desire to progress and achieve what they can. The very first race result I have a copy of at home was an U15 boys race within the South East Lancs Cross Country League. I finished 48th out of 52. My first National Cross Country Championship was 1998 where I finished 52nd in the U20 race, the following year I was 29th and since then I have ran in every National with finishing positions of 96th, 72nd, 18th, 23rd, 27th, 37th, 29th, 18th, 27th and 18th. It was only this year that at the age of 31 I finally represented England at Cross Country. Consistency has been key - I haven't had more than six successive days off since 1996 and as I have slowly improved, I have believed in myself more and more. I still don't think of myself as talented or elite but work very hard and know that when I am running well I can compete with all but a handful of runners in the UK. If just one young athlete reading this takes some inspiration from this then writing this blog will be worthwhile.
Tuesday 23 March 2010
Welcome
Hello, and welcome to my blog. Some of you reading this will already know me. For the benefit of those that do not, a brief introduction is in order!
My name is Dave Norman, I'm 31 years young and I have been running competitively with Altrincham & District Athletic Club for 18 years now! I have enjoyed some success, with international vests at the Marathon, Cross Country and Mountain Running but I have yet to achieve my own personal holy grail of competing in a major championship. I have set this blog up to chart the highs and the lows of my ongoing training and racing, hopefully you will enjoy reading it and take some inspiration away from it yourself.
Any of the small successes I have enjoyed have not come easy. Distance running is a very demanding sport, which requires consistent training (for me this typically entails 2 hours per day) and a tremendous amount of discipline. You need to be prepared to train in any weather, at 7am or 10pm if other commitments necessitate, you need to have some discipline with your diet and social life and you need to think about your running when making pretty much any lifestyle decision. I definitely DO NOT advocate no social life, no junk food and no booze as those who know me well will fully be aware! Having a balance is important and I'd like to think I have it where it should be. But it should be obvious that boozing til 3am followed by a takeaway 3-4 nights a week will not lead to successful athletic performance!
Running is a big part of my life, even away from training and competition. I live in Denton, Manchester with three other runners (Matt Bond, a Romanian Marius Ionescu who is training and competing abroad right now and my brother Andy). I work as an Assistant Manager at a specialist running shop - Sweatshop in Hyde - and have done so for five years now. I also organise road and track races in the local area as well as working for the British Milers Club. It's a crazy and hectic life that probably sounds like I'm rather one dimensional but I wouldn't have it any other way.
I'm currently just over four weeks away from the London Marathon which I have been training very hard for and hope to improve on my best time of 2:18:34. This year, there are two major championships - The European and Commonwealths - and the qualifying standard for the British team for both championships is 2:18:00. I will update this blog again over the course of this week to update you on my training so far and how I feel things are progressing.
I hope you've enjoyed reading this, if you are a runner yourself, I hope your own training is going well. If you have any questions, I'd be happy to answer them! Until next time!!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
