Alan Next-Door is a good man to know.  I'm not 100% sure what he does but I think he's in charge of the street cleaners in Portsmouth, they certainly seem to spend a bit longer cleaning our road than any of the others.  He always stops for a chat if we happen to cross paths and always has loads of time for my girls.  If a strange car takes up residence outside for too long the chats start to include words like "deep cleaning" and it's never to long before the unwanted vehicle has disappeared.  I'm not sure if it's coincidence or if he radios in some kind of Colas air strike in the dead of night.  If I don't ask I don't have to know.

This weekend Alan Next-Door really came up trumps.  On hearing I was training for the Great South Run he appeared at the door with passes to the VIP tent.  He couldn't take advantage himself as he'd be too busy cleaning the streets of the many thousand water and energy drink bottles that the runners take one sip of and throw to the kerb.  Anyway, his kindness made the day fantastic for us as we not only got to stuff in some quite delightful grub for free (the after-race sheperd's pie was superb!) but also got to meet and talk to some of the elite runners.  Hearing them describe their races it dawned on me that the levels that we run at might be quite different but the emotions we go through during a run are similar and the elation at having completed your target is identical whoever you are.

For my part things went pretty well.  As anyone who has been listening to me recently knows my obsession with the wind direction is only just outweighed by my obsession with Imodium.  Access to the VIP tent solved the second of those  (funny that when you've got unhindered access to toilet facilities before a race you don't need to go, but when there's a four mile queue for the Portaloos you can think of nothing else!) but the first played on my mind for every step of the first eight miles.  The whole way I focussed on a nice steady rhythm and just delivering myself to that turn with enough energy to get the kitchen sink out and throw it into the wind.  Having been down at Southsea yesterday to watch my daughter in the mini race and experienced our first real blast of Arctic chill together with a 30mph wind I was expecting the worst.  In addition to that my new found love of wind forecasting websites told me that it would turn this morning to the WSW and would be straight into our faces as we ran for home.  In the end...... I really wasn't that bad.  I had to dig hard down the stretch but managed to keep my pace steady right to the end, finish with a PB before hobbling back that free hospitality.

Only a short long run for me this week of about five and a half miles.  On Saturday I was very grateful for an invitation to join the Sunsail staff boat for a days racing out on The Solent.  Despite the handicap of my incompetence we finished a respectable third of twenty six in both races on the day, great starts giving us a lead in both races then faltering towards the line.  Sounds a bit like my running style.  It seems that seafarers share my new obsession with wind and yesterday their concern was all about the lack of it. We can only dream about such problems next Sunday...

This morning every bump and knock encountered during those hours crawling about the foredeck, hoisting the sheets and trimming the main was felt in a body that said "rest" and not "long run please".  I'd had a really good midweek speed session on the treadmill and, having done a HM only a couple of weeks ago, know that I've got plenty in my legs to get me round next week.  So I decided to drive to the seafront and run up and down it instead of slogging it there and back.  I parked at the Pyramids (roughly where the finish line will be next week) and ran east first before turning at Clarence Pier, then to Eastney before turning again and running "that" two miles down the finishing straight.  Having set off and found my stride a dilemma began.....

Seems that this idea of mine to confront the wind demons of Southsea is doomed to failure.  For the second week in a row the plan was to dawdle south from my house, turn the corner at the far eastern end of the seafront, stand tall, shoulders back, reveal the S on my chest and run into the wind like a man.... then, return to my normal scuffling self and limp home having slayed the doubt in my mind that keeps telling me I'm going to cave at the 8 mile mark (again).

Last year I'd trained a lot harder than I have this time around.  I'd come in for a lot of stick at work for having dared to enjoy myself in 2010 and post an (apparently) sedate 1h:36, so wasn't about to make the same mistake twice.  I publicly had a target of 1h:25 and was confident I could beat it with a private aim of sub 1h:20.  Things went pretty much to plan in the early stages.  I shunted my way near to the front of my start wave (if you start at the back you will spend a lot of energy sidestepping people) and went with the flow of the runners around me.  I felt good and the miles ticked by.  Not that I've run a lot of 10k races (one in fact) but I smashed my PB for that distance mid race, and then it started to get hard.  I was slowing now, but still well ahead of schedule, and at mile eight I worked out that I was heading for a time around 1:18 if I could just hold my pace..... I couldn't.  I turned the corner and ran into the strongest hurricane Southsea had ever known (but that no one else noticed).  Just keep going, just keep going......  During those last two miles of I made two discoveries.  First that the Bupa Nine Mile Boost Zone is actually before the nine mile marker (when you are that knackered 200 yards are important you know) and second that it is possible to be too tired to eat a jelly baby (or maybe it was a lump of Vasaline that someone handed me?).  I almost literally crawled over the line and in the process learned a big lesson about pacing and not getting carried away in the early stages of a run. Except I didn't did I?  I blamed it on the mythical gale force winds that barrel down the seafront knocking aside men, women, Olympic athletes and accountants in their wake.  I found the first excuse I could for my "failure " (I missed my target by a whole 13 seconds).  

How, finally 11 months later can I finally realise it was just an excuse? Because for the second weekend in a row I turned the corner at Eastney and ran into the glorious still air of yet another sunny autumn day on the south coast.  There is no wind to worry about in the Great South Run, it's just a myth........probably.

So it starts here.  The point of this blog is to keep you - kind sponsors, potentially kind potential sponsors and other assorted hangers on and voyeurs - up to date on my training.  Through these pages you'll begin to get a sense of how the training is going and therefore how fast I might finish the marathon next April (or indeed if I'll finish at all!!).  I'll record details of how much training I'm doing and how I'm feeling about it.  I might throw in some details of what's going on diet wise as well.  As you'll learn over the coming months running, food, Imodium and me have an intricate relationship.  In fact it's with some thoughts on that subject that we'll start....

It's Sunday tomorrow, long run day.  If the weather's good and I'm feeling fit it's the best day of the week.  Now that I've reached a stage in my fitness that I can take on a 7 or 8 mile run with confidence it's possible to actually start enjoying them.  Before it was like this I used to plan my routes with military precision.  I'd pore over online maps and measure each street.  Six miles last week and seven this, not a step more.  How long would it take? Would I make it at all?  Running further than I had before and struggling onward.  Now it's different, now that I've got a few "halfs" under my belt it's a lot easier to feel relaxed about the long run, which makes it a lot easier to enjoy yourself.  After all, you're supposed to run slowly, so head out, get some exercise, take in your surroundings and have some fun.  Maybe come back in an hour or maybe an hour and a half, just see how the mood takes you.

We're two weeks away from the 2012 Great South Run so I'll head out from my house and point towards Southsea.  The GSR is a dead flat ten miler, but it's not an easy jaunt and the hidden teeth are blowing in the wind.  At the eight mile mark you reach Eastney, you make a right hand turn.  From there the last two miles straight back down the seafront are where you find out if you are fit or not.  For every yard of the first eight miles the people of Portsmouth will have cheered you on.  They come out every year in their thousand'd to clap, cheer, yell and high five the runners along.  The organisation is superb, the atmosphere is fantastic and you are carried along. At eight miles though everything changes..... If the wind is blowing it's invariably from the South West and this means it's invariably straight into your face.  If it's wet then it's wet and windy so no spectator in their right mind chooses to hang out on that section of the course.  There might be other runners out there but really it's just you and the wind.  Nowhere to hide, are you fit or not, it finds you out.  Anyway, my plan is to confront this windy menace head on this year, so I'm making sure I run the shoreline in the weeks before the event.  Three easy miles from my front door to Eastney, turn right, bang in a couple of "race pace" (everything is relative!) miles along the front and then pick a route home.  Last week was my first go at this and it didn't work out quite how I'd planned because when I got to the seafront the weather was just beautiful and the wind was behind me!  I can't imagine it will be the same two weeks in a row so let's see what tomorrow brings.

Talking of wind, we had spicy lentil soup for tea tonight.  Emma prepared it from scratch and very tasty it was too.  The relevance of this to my running blog though is the history I have with stomach problems.  More than a few times I've ended up walking gingerly back to the house, or to a nearby convenience, lest I do a Radcliffe.  I'm the only person in Portsmouth who is not a fan of George Michael but knows where every public toilet is (tomorrow Eastney, Canoe Lake and The Pyramids are all possibles!).  Let's hope I don't have to visit any of them!  Before races I'm more careful with my diet and I ram myself full of Imodium, but between races I'm not so careful and it can cause problems.  Fingers (or legs) crossed tomorrow is OK.

If you're running tomorrow yourself, I hope you have a great time.  Let me know how you go....