Let’s Get it Started

It’s zero degrees, it got dark about an hour ago and it’s only 5pm.  We’ve just got back from a family weekend away and they have just settled down in the cosy lounge with hot chocolates in front of ‘Cheaper by the Dozen’ on telly.  It sounds like the perfect Sunday evening.  So I’ll just nip outside for an hour and half long run.  At least it’s stopped snowing now.  It’s not all bad though – I’ve had my fair share of early runs and am often greeted by some amazing sunrises before anyone is up and about.  More than just the predictable romance of this is the fact that I feel like a bit of a superhero.  This was last Sunday morning for example:

Sun 10th Jan – Silverstone

Let’s make no mistake, I’m only two weeks in and this isn’t going to be a walk in the park. As my better half recently pointed out, there’s a reason the word ‘grunt’ is so prominent in the middle of this blog’s name.  If I’m totally honest, I’m a numbers geek and starting a training plan for a big event brings back memories of a beautifully colour-coordinated revision timetable before exams at school.  Just getting the timetable done is half the battle right?  Somehow I think that’s not the case.

This blog is all about the highs and the lows of this challenge and I’ll lay out the training plan each week so you can see what I’m up to.  if you really want to pay close attention you can keep track of my strava log, otherwise you’ll have to make do with here.  The first two weeks have gone pretty much to plan:

The only blip was this Sunday just gone when I didn’t quite have time to do a full 13miles and promised I’d be back by bathtime. Life sometimes takes over though and I can’t let this worry me.  I have to make sure I do as much as possible and if a run gets missed or not fully completed then so be it.  It’s easy to say that when I’m 14 weeks away from the big day!  All in all, it’s a good start and although the distances involved are not huge yet, this has got to be the darkest, coldest time to get my runs in.  Most of them at the moment are as pleasant as this:

Mon 5th Jan – Abthorpe

It’s difficult to emphasise quite how hard it was raining during this run.  It’s also difficult to emphasise how concerned the look on the farmer’s face was as he chugged past on his tractor while I took this picture.  I still felt like Rocky being out in the rain.

That’s about it for an introductory post so, to sum up, you get it – there are going to be a lot of runs.  I suspect at some points I’m going to be pretty fed up and my legs are going to be pretty tired.  So bear with me as just occasionally you have runs where everything just feels great.  Just occasionally these days coincide with sunny, cold, windless days and you realise this might just be amazing

Tues 19th Jan – Mixbury

Finally, the usual reminder.  If you wish to know more about the fantastic charity that I’ll be running the London marathon for, then please check out my justgiving page