Tim's countdown to the Virgin London Marathon 2011
tnmboswell
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Tim's countdown to the Virgin London Marathon 2011
Seconds out - round two ! The ten week countdown to the 2011 VLM starts here ... !
Please sponsor me in aid of Macmillan Cancer Support at http://www.virginmoneygiving.com/timboswell
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After crossing the line there were the formalities to get done – get chip removed, have medal placed around neck, collect goody bag and pose for official photo. Then there was the rest of the Mall to negotiate – it’s a good job that there are railings ...
So here it is. The story of my 26.2 miles. In 27 installments ! I’ll put the split times for each mile at the start, though there were a few occasions where I forgot to press the button to tell my watch that I’d completed a mile. In these instances,...
I caught the 1230 train from Warwick to London Marylebone. Some of my family had gone down on an earlier train and struggled to get a seat so I was relieved to find the 1230 not too busy. There were one or two Man City and Man Utd fans heading to the ...
It’s 1130, I’m freshly showered, have already eaten a bowl of porridge, the world’s biggest banana and a cereal bar and drunk half a litre of grape juice.
The train leaves Warwick at around 1230, though I’ve already had warning from my sister that the...
After the mad rush of yesterday, today’s been quite a bit more chilled.
I had a half day at work, which included a chat on one of the other programmes about why I’m running the marathon, how I got into running, and how the training’s gone. On the ph...
I set out shortly after 8 this morning, expecting the traffic in Warwick to be a nightmare. Couldn’t have been more wrong – there was hardly any. I presume the school holidays must be underway ... !
This gave me longer than expected at the train sta...
The fundraising's really taken a step forward over the past couple of days. Family and friends have once again been really generous. I made some Rocky Road to bring into work today, and that's earned a few more entrants into the 'guess my finshing tim...
Well the first entry for "guess my marathon time" is in ... it's from a work colleague ... and it's 4 hours 21 minutes and 17 seconds. I'm saying nothing - except 'thank you' !
Another step along the "this is getting real" path last night, when the f...
Strange, isn’t it, the things you’ll gladly share on a blog – when you’d never even remotely consider saying them in person ! This struck me when I was asked at work today “how’s your nipple” ?!
I’ll happily write about all manner of ills and troubl...
Sort of inevitable, I guess, but since the minute I woke up this morning I’ve been playing the “this time next week game ... “. Eating porridge / getting on the train / getting impatient at the start / off, are those that have featured so far. And as ...
Today’s 8 miles were more eventful than planned – or rather, the last part was !
Another gorgeous day so it was an ideal opportunity to wear my race kit – Macmillan vest, shorts, socks and shoes. With it being a Saturday, it was also a good chance to...
All fairly uneventful with the swim yesterday, except to say that the mild strain of tapering madness continues. I felt like I’d done plenty after just 30 minutes in the pool yesterday ... in just the same way that I felt as if 30 or 40 minutes running ...
I thought I’d get blogging daily for the last ten days before the marathon.
Some good news to start with. The general energy-less feeling of last week seems to have passed. Phew ! I wouldn’t say I’m up to 100% in terms of running capacity – my legs...
I think if I had to describe the first week of my taper in one phrase, it’d be topsy-turvey.
After Sunday’s 24 miles, I’d completely expected everything to hurt, and for me to be hobbling along like John Wayne fresh off his horse. So I was completely...
Just one addition to my previous blog before I get underway – I forgot to add something else that got me through last week – on top of cherry juice, cold showers and ibuprofen – there’s the foam roller. I bought this last year, it cost about £15,and it...
It’s been a bit of a sore week, but given the mileage is almost at its peak, I guess that’s not a major surprise.
The training plan only prescribes one cross training day per week for the next couple of weeks, so it was straight back to the running on...
With a bit of training plan jiggling, I managed to have Monday as a rest day to recover from Silverstone. Actually, there was a little bit of cross training involved as I had a 2 mile round trip of a walk into Warwick town centre for an event in the ev...
Lining up on the start / finish straight at Silverstone at lunchtime, I’d convinced myself that a decent time was out of the question. I’d spent much of the previous evening DJ’ing a ninth birthday party, where the shouts and screams of the children we...
It’s been another week with the running stacked towards the first few days.
Given that Wednesday’s run was due to be the longest of the three, alongside the fact that Sunday was a day off, I did the 40 minute run on Monday, the 30 minutes on Tuesday, an...
Given that Monday was a) the day after the PB in the Brighton half and b) a day that was bound to be taken up with walking around various parts of West Sussex, I counted it as a cross training day in itself. Which, as it turned out, was the right thing ...
The alarm went off at 4.30am. On a Sunday morning. Ouch. Never mind – lots to do, porridge to eat and bags to pack. Plenty of time to get everything sorted and leave at 5.30am. Which is why I left at 5.50am. Not quite sure where an hour and twe...
As expected, I was mostly sore from the waist down on Monday ! But, as I was determined to load up the first half of the week with running, I set out for a 30 minute recovery run on Monday with the added ‘treat’ of supports where it hurt most, which wa...
I’ve had two serious motivational challenges this week ...
The first was one Wednesday, when facing the prospect of (thankfully), my last intervals session. Actually, getting out of the door wasn’t really the hardest bit, though having also run on Tu...
So here’s part two of our catch-up !
I'm following a four month training plan this year - last year's was just about 13 weeks as I only found I had a place in the marathon mid-way through January. So, this year's is a longer plan, but it’s also a bit t...
