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!!