September...

[Mid Life Crisis Marathon Man]

Good man. I'm in a very similar position. To be honest though, I think this period is relatively easy and enjoyable because we're feeling so enthusiastic and excited.

Undoubtedly there is an element of that, although I am not really holding back. What I am finding immensely enjoyable is getting in a fair swag of hard training without the usual knee and shin problems. Race walking is darn hard work, but much less stressful on the body. So far anyway

One question -- what is your training based on? Are you following a schedule, or just making it up as you go along?

A fair question. Because it's an unusual race, being all uphill, I am having to feel my way somewhat, but essentially I'm doing six sessions a week - 4 x 60 minute hill slogs, 1 less hilly interval session and one long slow gentle hill session.

The race is only a few weeks away (Nov 26th) and the main thing for me is to slowly ramp up the speed over the coming weeks. I'll increase the speed of the hill slogs by up to 5% each week, increase the number of intervals each session and lengthen the long slowy also. Not exactly rocket science but should do the trick. Realistically, increasing my speed by 5% every week may be asking too much, but there's enough time to increase my newbie speed significantly I think, without risking injury, to something vaguely satisfactory . I've been pretty good about putting in a helluva lot of walking even during my running injuries over the last couple of years, so thus far I'm not having any problems. It's mostly a case of building strength and developing technique - the speed should then look after itself. The distance I already know I can cover, even uphill.

Of course I may yet have to eat my own words as I've done before, but if I never lay it out on the table, I'll always have a cop out, so there you are. Thus far it's immensely enjoyable and I'll give it a fair crack.

And I really do feel really, really good again