Pretty fly for a white guy

I spent last week in Lanzarote.  It was very hot.  Despite this I managed to get out on two mornings (it should've been three but I still reckon I did well).  The main trouble was that you have to get out before 8am otherwise the sun just makes it too unpleasant to run.  I'm not sure the locals are ready for the sight of a 130kg paleface trailing beads of sweat behind him as he pounds the pavement.  I have made a top purchase - a pair of round-the-back-of-the-neck bluetooth headphones.  This eliminates the trailing wire and hence improves my aerodynamic profile - I'm with David Brailsford on this one; it's all about percentages.  I got out again on Easter Sunday despite not getting home until 3am the night before - two main observations: firstly it's much colder in Lincolnshire than in Lanzarote; secondly the running is definitely easier.  I'm almost up to a full half hour without a break now although still limited to around 6.5kph.  My legs don't seem to go any faster - I'm not getting remotely out of breath anymore but stepping up the pace is proving difficult.  I was out this afternoon and did just over 2 miles and I think I'm starting to lengthen the paces a little so maybe there is progress.  I certainly couldn't have run 2 miles straight 2 months ago.  I'm beginning to think that running the entire distance in September is not that unrealistic after all.

When returned home I was greeted with my Woodhall Spa 10K number and chip.  This is all getting a bit real now!  Just 41 days until I run 10K and my current distance is sitting at just under 4K.  Need to keep up the training - no time for gaps now.

Apologies if the blog is a bit random and disparate this week - nothing exciting has happened or occurred to me since the last entry but I feel the need to keep things up.  My good friend Angela has just completed the London Marathon in just over 6 hours so very well done her (she only really started running about this time last year and has come through several injuries).  I don't think I'll ever do (or want to do) the full marathon but the thought of running half marathons in different countries is actually quite appealing (not least because it's a good excuse to go to those countries).

According to Prince on a track that came on the iPod today, it's flyer to be hungry than fat.

If only someone had told me before.

I could've been so fly.

So, with 139 days to go:

Longest sustained run: 27 minutes
Musical highlight: Bloc Party
Weight: Slightly up (damn you Spanish cuisine)
Confidence: Increasing
Urge to kill:Minimal

Don't push too far

It's a month since my last post but fortunately that doesn't mean I haven't been training.  I've been doing at least 3 sessions a week and am close to being ready to go for a longish run (by which I mean half an hour without stopping).  That should form the jumping off point for training for 10K which I need to be ready for by 1st June when I shall be attempting the Woodhall Spa 10K.  It was the Lincoln 10K yesterday which I did briefly consider entering but it just comes too soon in my schedule and I don't want to demoralise myself.  That said I was reassured by the amount of people doing the run/walk thing - I have calmed myself about the half marathon that if it comes to it I can do a run/walk and still cover the distance in a reasonable time.  No - the reason I haven't blogged for a while is because I haven't been able to think about anything funny to write, so don't hold your breath!

I guess I'll discuss running instead.  My wife did the Lincoln 10K yesterday in 1hr 40sec (the winning time was 32:10 which is just plain wrong).  I reckon I'm aiming for a time of around 1hr 15min in June and possible 3hr 30min for the half marathon - I'm not quite at the Elite level yet!  I did the Sport Relief 3 mile run as a run/walk and was in quite a lot of pain afterwards although felt surprisingly good the day after - my body is obviously becoming finely tuned (albeit in B fat major)!

One of the key things when running is the music - running is an incredibly boring occupation.  I've never found it useful to run with others; partly because they're always much faster than me and partly because I prefer to just get my head down and pound the pavement.  This is where music comes in - when I did the half-marathon all those years ago my Walkman batteries ran out at about 5 miles which made for a very bleak finish.  I can't remember what I was listening to at the time - probably Fantastic by Wham.

I'm currently trying to put together a play list which will get me through just over 3 hours of running. I'm after a mixture of uptempo songs (to revive me) and songs which run more or less at my pace - I was a little disappointed to discover that my running pace exactly matches T'Pau's classic "China In Your Hand," a song about Mary Shelly and Frankenstein!  I will be running at Frankenstein's pace.  Maybe I should hire a mob to chase after me waving pitchforks and torches?

Even more disappointing is the occasional unexpected song - I'm not sure how I've come to have the current mix of songs on my iPhone that I have but it seems to include the soundtrack from Mamma Mia amongst other things - I'd rather eat my legs than listen to that.  Truly horrifically a song came on today to which my initial reaction was "nice one - this is pretty good," only to realise half way through that it was a track from High School Musical!  So as I bopped to the top completing my 2 x 8 minute run:

Distance covered last month:  27.86km
Musical highlight: Blister in the Sun by Violent Femmes
Weight lost: Absolutely f***ing none! Not fair.
Urine: Still smelly (see earlier blog if you're confused by that one)
Pain in ankles: Lessening
Breathlessness: Lessening
Urge to kill: Moderate