February 2011

[marathondan]

Week 13 – 6 weeks to go

Another three runs despatched. Pace continues to be somewhat slower than I would hope for, but I guess I know in the back of my mind that I’m not training for speed.

Surprising TdJ from the tempo playlist: Mr Pitiful from the Commitments soundtrack, eclipsing the twin giants of Ace of Spaces and AC/DC’s Heatseeker.

The long run was a stepback of just over 12 miles; in my mind it would be easy so of course in practice it wasn’t. But when push came to shove I was able to kick for home in the last mile and a half, with plenty left in the tank, to the somewhat tragic TdJ of Cher’s I Found Someone.

Main audio on the long run was provided by another enjoyable Marathon Talk podcast. Lots of elite chat to keep us mortals inspired, and some interesting snippets:

- an interesting interview with British Olympic marathon prospect Lee Merrion.

- sports physio and 2:49 marathon runner Tom Williams admits that he "rarely stretches" – so I’m in good company.

- regular contributor Tony is choosing his fancy dress costume for this year’s VLM (can’t think why I was attracted to this item). Last year he broke (or set) the world record for a marathon dressed as a Smurf (around 3:30 I think – way out of my league). Interestingly, the world record for a marathon dressed as a fairy apparently stands at 4 hours, so I missed a trick in 2009, when the addition of a couple of wings could have seen me entering the Guinness book. Actually I did look into it last year, but I didn’t leave long enough for the application. And the same now applies this year.

Total miles for February: 85.4 (two missed runs due to back injury)
Planned miles for March: 122