Tim's 2012 marathon training by tnmboswell

I’m back!  And the end of the last marathon blog, I promised myself I’d blog again later in the year.  I failed miserably.  Sorry peeps!

So here we are – New Year, New Challenge.  No London Marathon place this year I’m afraid (not for want of trying !).  I could go for a charity place, but raising anything up to £2,500 sounds a more impossible challenge to me than a sub 4-hour marathon.  So it was, then, that I found myself sitting in front of my PC earlier this week, in a New Year fug, signing up for the Shakespeare (Stratford) Marathon at the end of April.  Sure, it’s no London, but it has its advantages – it’s only 10 minutes down the road, no hotel to book, no restaurant to convince to serve large bowls of pasta, and warm bath, comfy sofa and bed guaranteed!

By way of a quick catch-up on the rest of 2011 – there were a couple more PBs after London.  The Two Castles (Warwick to Kenilworth) in June brought about a 10k PB of 47:32 and the Kenilworth Half at the start of September brought my PB over 13.1 miles down to 1:40:03.  Tantalisingly close to being sub 1:40, but I was genuinely shocked at the time because the course is quite hilly, I’d not set out for a PB and started with a bit of a sore knee!  However, conditions were perfect after some early heavy rain so on a cool and cloudy morning I managed to knock more than 4 minutes off my half marathon PB.

I trained throughout my holiday in September, ready for the Coventry Half at the start of October.  This came right at the end of the really hot spell we had early last autumn, so in such warm conditions it was just a case of plodding through.  Despite banking plenty of hilly miles of St. Martins on the Isles of Scilly, I really struggled with the course and conditions and was feeling terrible  from about mile 10 onwards.  The Birmingham Half a few weeks later brought about much more favourable running conditions.  I didn’t get a PB but at least 1:42:11 was a few minutes faster than Coventry.

December brought about something of a running milestone when I reached the 1,000 mile mark early in the month.  By coincidence, I’d calculated I would reach four figures during the Santa Dash, in aid of the Myton Hospices near Leamington.  However, I realised very early on in proceedings that I’d got my maths wrong.  Thinking that I’d need to run an extra lap of the course to reach 1,000 miles I agreed with the team from work that I’d crack on and catch them somewhere before their last lap.  I managed this – at which point it became apparent that one extra lap wouldn’t be enough.  So it was, then, that with everyone finished, I carried on for yet another lap. Which came and went, still without reaching the magic distance.  However, that came half a lap later (by now 2 ½ laps longer than planned!), and I was grateful to two of the team who came along to run the last section with me. 

So that was 2011.  166 runs - 1,050 miles clocked up by the end of the year – and 153 hours spent running.  I’ll move onto 2012 next time!