The Loneliness of the (not so) Long Distance Runner

And so it begins. At 6am this morning I awoke to begin my training for the Dublin City Marathon which takes place on 27 October 2008. Normally, the recommended training time for a marathon is 24 weeks, and you run the marathon in the 25th. Unfortunately, I made my decision to run this race about 6 weeks too late to complete a full training program, and therefore I'm going to have to build up slightly more intensively over the first couple of weeks than would be ideal.

There's an old saying that even the longest journey starts with the first step and this morning was no different. New runners, new training gear and lots of nervous energy combined to make the first few minutes seem to fly by. However, last nights beers with Alison and Darren soon kicked in and I was huffing and puffing so much I was in danger of sending Dorothy back to Oz. Beer is off my list of accepted substances!

Now, training for a marathon is all about the length of time you run for, not just the speed. My schedule is fairly simple. I will run 5 times a week. For the first 8 weeks that will consist of 3 short(er) runs and 2 long(er) runs. For the last 9 weeks it will swap for 2 short(er) and 3 long(er). For the first week my runs will average between 15-20 minutes, just to build up my lungs etc again. In the 23rd week my runs will vary between 1.5 to 2.5 hours. The penultimate week is a kind of rest week where I will only do 4 short 30 minute runs all leading up to the big race. There is no point in running for any longer than 2.5 hours in training because you wouldn't prepare for climbing Everest by climbing Everest.

At this moment in time I'll be very happy with a time of 5 hours (that's how unfit I am) but to be honest, I'd love to break 4 hours. That will mean running each KM in 5 minutes, 33 seconds (or each mile in 9 minutes 15 seconds). Why am I doing this again!!!

Even though this is a very selfish challenge, I will probably pick a charity to run for and be looking for money off you so get your wallets out. I will update you on this more in future posts. Next on my to do list though is to go to the doctor for a medical certificate, showing I don't have a dodgy strawberry!

So there it is, the race has begun....eek!