Progress so far

So, how am I doing with the big challenge? Still trying to manage the first bit to be honest......getting back to the 5 miles in 50 minutes is going to be a lot more difficult than I first thought. I've been out a couple more times around my 2 miler and it has got easier, and I am using the wii fit to do half an hour of step on the days inbetween so my level of physical exertion is increasing, but along with it comes the realisation that what I have taken on is so much bigger and harder than where I've been before. I've failed to take into account that the last time I got up tp 5 in 50 reguarly it didn't just happen in the blink of an eye, there is a level of graft involved. And this time that is just the start.

This weather does not help either. I am not running outside in the snow, not with packed ice underneath, my grips are good but the risk is too great, one of the things that I can do without is any kind of injury. I'm not saying that I am immune but I can minimise the risk by not going out in snow! So this morning I ran around wii island twice, and did a fast 20 minute step whilst watching an episode of "Two and a half men". According to the wii fit this has burned off around 250 calories. Is that a lot?! This machine also tells me that I am 3 lbs lighter than this time last week, so that has to be a positive, although I don't put any trust in a machine that has previously informed my svelt like 7 year old that she was overweight.

Anyway, I'm setting myself the target of doing the 5 mile course at some point in the next 7 days, even if it takes me over an hour, just so I can say I have got the distance back in my legs....then we'll take it from there.

cheers
Andy

Why is life so complicated?

Please type answers below.

Philosophical, existential, religious, practical, whateverical.

Andy

The loneliness of a short distance runner

So the theory with this is blindingly simple. Up until October last year (when I got involved with my local pantomime and was spending my evenings either sorting out the music for that, attending rehearsals, or watching American football) I had been what I would describe as an occasional jogger, I would go out in an evening either once or sometimes twice a week, always running the same 5 mile circular course, usually in 50 minutes or thereabouts. The course starts with an uphill section for a mile, then the rest is either gently down or flat, so it;s a good mix (and gets the hard part out of the way first!).

In order to do a marathon in 4 hours 30 minutes, by my maths all I need to be able to do is my 5 mile course 5 times, then a bit more tagged on to the end. When you say it like that it sounds easy. Doesn't it? Doesn't it! Mmmm. You just build up the distance gradually over the next six months.

That's it in a nutshell. Just requires a positive head.

The first job is to get back to the 5 miles in 50 minutes, as quickly as possible, hopefully in the next couple of weeks. However, as I sit typing this this morning with the stiffest legs I can ever remember having, and a back that is telling me "did you not know about the muscles in here, because you sure as heck do now!" after crawling around my beginners 2 mile course on Thursday, then I realise that the 5 miles in 50 minutes challenge is going to be tougher than first thought. I ought to add that I played 5-a-side on Thursday night as well for the first time in months, so that has contributed to the pain.

These activities are going to contribute to my improvement in fitness levels over the next few months, but at the moment they bring me only pain and misery.

It will get easier. Won't it?

Challenges for the rest of my life - what this is all about

So it starts like this. I'm 43, male, with a pretty good life all things considered, beautiful wife, two lovely daughters, a nice house, great friends, biggish but manageable mortgage, job that is not quite dull enough that I can't cope with it, etc etc. I figure that, barring the unexpected, I'm pretty much over half way through my existence. When I was 40 I made a list of things that I wanted to do in my forties. It's kind of working out OK, but something has changed. A conversation at work with a colleague led to both of us applying to do a marathon this September. He'd done London last year, and he convinced me that it was do-able, I'd always fancied having a go but had always thought it was maybe a bit out of reach. Anyway, I've paid up now and I'm pretty tight with the money so that's it, we're running it and that's that. I'll go into the running in a lot more detail over the next few months.

Anyway, that got me thinking some more, and to cut a pretty short story shorter still, I decided that, however many years I have left here, I should set myself some kind of challenge to focus on each year. Now I should point out straight away that I am not talking about stuff like crossing the Andes in a glider or breaking the land speed record, in fact if I manage to drag my aging limbs around 26 miles it may be the only actual physical challenge I get to, I'm talking about mundane stuff that I've either not done enough of or not done at all that I would like to do. So I'm warning you now that if you stick with me you may be reading about my cooking disasters, or me spending 12 months reading classics, or trying to write a symphony, or the perfect rock ballad or, well, that's the thing, I haven't really decided what I'm gonna do, just that this year I am attempting to run a marathon. Next year I'll do something else.

For the next few months I will be writing a blog / diary / random trail of thoughts around how someone who is at least a stone and a half over his ideal running weight and who has not pulled on his trainers since October is going to transform himself into a lean mean running machine who has pledged to run the Nottingham Marathon on September the 12th in 4 and a half hours. It might go all pear shaped, it might be a triumph, it may be vaguely entertaining, it might get picked up by faber & faber, who knows, maybe a future challenge will be to be a published author.

cheers
Andy