Half way there!

                                                       

I'm actually 8 weeks in now and that is the half way point of the training plan. 

A hell of a lot has happened this month.  We've moved house.  So after 16 years of living in one place, seeing the birth of our children and raising them through the early years, we've now moved on.  So there's been a lot of change going on.  And somehow the one common thread has been my running.  It surprises me that I write this more than anything else.  But it is true.

So how has the running been?  Well I'm running four times a week and there is one long run every Sunday.  So at the end of January, my long run was 12 miles and my first Sunday run in February, was the Watford half marathon.  There's lots of photos here from that run.  I had a great day and I was really pleased with how the run went.  I managed to set off nice and easy and then have plenty of energy left at the half way point.  So I ran the last 6 miles at a good pace.  This enabled me to come in at 1:52:36 which (though it's not my PB) I'm very pleased, as it was really just a training run and also the terrain is pretty hilly.

Then during February (and into March also) every run gets progressively longer and longer.  This has been a little challenging mentally.  There's a heavy cloud overhanging constantly as the challenge gets incrementally stronger.  That said, when it comes to the day, I take the challenge with a smile on my face and I go out there, enjoy the outdoors and look to run in my rhythm.  I can now see how the technique of each person's run is important.  It's good to find the right pace and to keep it as constant as possible.  This requires some mental concentration.  It can become quite mindless (or perhaps mindful is a better way of looking at it) as your brain starts to switch off from the world, draw into itself and listen to the body.  Try to run from your core as this is more energy efficient.  Use your core to alternately pull each arm back to create some momentum to draw each leg forward.  As you do this I notice how I'm using less energy for each stride.  Marathon running is endurance running and energy efficiency per stride is a critical component for such a distance.

Amazing really, I never imagined that the inner technicalities of running is something that I would be writing about on a blog.  And yet it's a bit like the book, Zen and the art of motorcycle maintenance.  These small things in life are the things that incrementally start to explain the bigger things.  So as we all have goals and objectives, it's important to have a view of the big picture but it's also so important to be aware of the 'little things' and to be aware on how they're effecting your performance and your mental state.  So here's an awkward example.  Since moving house, I haven't been able to find my running gear.  Slightly embarrassingly, I have to confess that it's really bothered me.  I've bought all this running equipment (particularly for the cold weather) and I cannot find it anywhere.  What does it matter?  Well it helps me to feel like a runner, and to be fair, it stops me from catching something on those cold, early morning runs (and there have been plenty of them recently).

                               

By the way, my running kit has turned up.  Typically, it's been sitting right under my nose and I've been looking at it every time I walk into the room.  Somehow I had it in my head that the box was Sue's not mine so I just walked past it.  And yet it was actually a box I myself had packed!

So now I'm into March and this is the final month but it's also full of long runs.  Once we get into April the training starts to taper off before the big day arrives on the 24th!