Training Week 22 - Growing in confidence!

3rd good running week in a row, 3 more of these and I should be very well set for the big day

I continued on with the last two weeks winning running formula with 3 medium length runs during the week, a short midday run on the Friday and then another new long distance record run on the Sunday..except this week I upped the distance even further.




Monday- Night off to cook some Chili for the week and to give the legs a bit of time to recover from the previous Sundays 27km run, and also to purchase my 3rd pair of trainers as the others were just hitting the 400 mile expiry..(The newest ones are the shiniest)


Tuesday- Back into action with a new adventurous route planned. It was supposed to take me over what appeared to be a large park south-east of Croydon..unfortunately it turned out to be private land..and a golf course so what was supposed to be a soft underfoot 13km run turned into a 15.5km run with many detours, very happy to find I got through this ok after the weekends run.

Wednesday- A 13km run home from work which left me exhausted..possibly the previous two runs catching up with me I think

Thursday- Another 13km run, much slower than normal but at least no new injury concerns

Friday- An easy 4km run on my lunch break with the lovely Michelle from IT Projects. Definitely needed this run as the previous 4 had been taking their toll and this was good just to stretch the legs without interfering with my big Sunday run.

Saturday- Day off, Rugby, Ice, Movie, Ice, Book reading, Ice..quality

Sunday- The big one!


Route - 30km run from my house in Beckenham up to the Royal Observatory in Greenwich and back

Company - Fellow runner Charles, and flatmate/marathon veteran cruelly cut down by injury Gareth who kindly volunteered to drive up to the observatory to get some footage of our running.

Highlights-

1km - pain in right ankle, figured I could run it off

2km - pain in both ankles and shins, worried I may not be able to run it off

4km - pain too much, in a last ditch effort to save the run I quickly re laced my laces..kinda felt that one was much tighter than the other

5km - a little lost in Beckenham palace park..took a wrong turn somewhere

7km - found our way back onto the map and realise my legs are feeling quite a bit better

9km - Charlies ipod dies, not a good sign this early in a run, there's only so much you can talk about when out of breath for 3 hours

17km - First signs that Charlies leg isn't doing to well

19km - A little bit of a downhill and Charles leg is not coping well at all

21km - The ascent up the observatory hill, painful but not as bad as I would have thought considering we had 20km behind us, Gareth catches up with us here and films a bit of a running interview

22km - Charlie pulls out and catches a ride back with Gareth, I'm still in good spirits so continue on

27km - Not in such good spirits anymore, starting to 'Hit the wall'

29km - Really struggling, trying to sing along to the Beatles 'Let it Be' to keep my mind occupied..strange looks from passers-by

31km - body starting to shutdown, now just a mind game to finish, saved by Amanda Ray's song 'Little Things' which starts playing on the ipod..I sing along as enthusiastically as possible

32km - Warm-down, I have the camera at this time so say a few words..not making a whole lot of sense

A couple of hours later - In bed, ice strapped to legs watching a movie, happy to have no new injury..just the old ones giving me their usual grief

So there you have it, another excellent week and to top it off Southern Railway has offered a sponsorship of £150.00 to my cause to be paid once I've completed the marathon. Now only 10km off the marathon distance and only £500.00 more to raise - Feeling Confident!


Week 22 Results:

Distance Covered: 77.2km
Total running time: 7 hours 51 minutes
Average speed: 9.8 km/h
Money Raised: £160.00 Big thanks to Wendy and 'Southern Railway'