I would like to formally
announce, to all 7 of my beloved followers, my candidature of marathon
debutante in Murcia on November 3rd, 2013. It's taken a lot of soul-searching
to decide to enter this race but in the end, boredom won out.
I've been running for
about 2 and a half years now and like anyone I've had my ups and downs. In the
end, I've decided these are no worse or better than anyone else's so I've kind
of become a bit alienated from the running community. This is because I've realised
that blogging about the mental aspects of running, as this blog attests, can be
mind-numbingly boring. So I thought I'd just get on with it, enter the bloody
race and see how it goes.
There are a couple of
great things about this particular marathon that grabbed my attention. Firstly
it's being organised by a club called 'Corre Birras' or 'The Running Beers'.
Cool. Secondly, it's limited to 1,500 runners so there won't be big crowds to
negotiate, which is something I am eternally grateful for. Third, it's Murcia's
first marathon so I reckon there will be a pretty good atmosphere.
I've done four training
sessions so far, using a time-training approach I've downloaded from
micoach.com. It's really good. My sessions have included my first interval session
(where my son came with me and played on my mobile while I ran up and down past
him, high-fiving on the way), a mountain session where I fell over and gashed
my knee (taking me back to my school days) and a two hour LSR that I'm still
stiff as houses from. However, it was the beach session that really taught me a
lesson. I won't say much about it except that no-one ever told me I had to wear
underwear and not just run in my swimwear. Chinese water torture had nothing on
it. I only got through it because I'm so mentally hard but there were some
delicate moments for days afterwards.
The other great thing
about running is I'm back in Cwmbran at the moment. Wales is a beautiful place
and makes such a contrast to the grim desert heat of Alicante. You can see this
by looking at the garmin routes below and changing the map to satellite mode:
The other thing about
Cwmbran was the running in the rain. If I tried to do two hours in Alicante I
would be stopping every 30 minutes to glug down 20 litres of water. In Cwmbran
I did my 2 hour LSR without the need for any water and I got soaked into the
bargain. I also got heckled by a car full of lads, who I gave the finger to,
and a car full of girls, who I waved at. Oh, the mysterious vagaries of the mind.
Anyway, I'm underway. My
ankle is hurting. I'm feeling positive. I'm blogging again. All 7 of you have
my love if you could be bothered to get this far. Let me hear you say 'yeah!'
