It seemed somehow fitting that I just happened to be in Las Vegas as Week 1 Day 1 of my training for the Brighton Marathon rolled around.  When deciding to take on the marathon distance for the first time you are, of course, taking something of a gamble.  Over the next 20 weeks I'll be taking myself out of my comfort zone, adding longer distances than I've ever run before and more and more weekly miles.  Will my body (and mind) cope or will my running aspirations be left broken and lying in the gutter along with the ones I had about winning anything at the poker tables this weekend?!
It may well have been somehow fitting that I woke up in Vegas but the reality was that it made getting my fist run of my schedule completed much harder.  Needing to be up and out for a 6am taxi to the airport with a weekend full of over-indulgence in my belly meant I was never going to be able to run in the morning.  Last time I took an internal flight from Las Vegas I sat in the cafe waiting for the flight to be called while a group near to me snorted powder off of the table and toasted the anniversary of their first threesome with copious amounts of tequila.  This definitely a crazy, crazy place!  

Anyhow, no such interesting diversions to keep me from my coffee this morning and, once landed and transferred to the office for the day, there was no chance to run until after dark.  Since running along the 880 Freeway in the dark didn't appeal my first run of my first week of official training for my first marathon took place........... on a treadmill.

Never mind, at least (and at last) I'm underway and am now "in training".  The goal that I've pondered for a year or so is now tangibly in sight and I am actively working towards it.  If you see me and I look determined and deep in thought it will probably be because I'm in the zone and determined that nothing will stop me making it to that finish line on April 14.  Or it could be because I lost a teeny bit more in Vegas than I've yet told Emma about...

Forget the 3 R's.  The 5 P's are where it's at if you're a runner.  If you haven't got a Plan then you're going to be found out when you least want to be.  Somewhere around mile 20 by all accounts....  

It's five years since I first tackled the 10 miles of the Great South Run, and for three years now I've been run at least one GSR and half marathon a year.  Twelve weeks out from an event I'll search out my trusty training plan, dust it down and spend the next three months largely ignoring it as I bring myself to the peak of physical well being (everything is relative).  I'm confident that I know what to do now. Ideally I'll run three times a week when I'm "in training" but I'm a realist and life can get in the way.  If it ends up being just twice a week I won't worry too much.  If it ends up being just once I'll make sure it's the long run and vow to try harder next week.

First time up I wasn't sure what to do.  First time up I didn't know whether running that far was something I was capable of, so I followed the plan to the letter.  Now though I know what's involved and I know what my body can do.  There's no doubt as to whether I'll make it to the end, the doubt is whether I'll make it around as fast as I want to.  Bragging rights at work (which is actually an exercise in not holding the wooden spoon), impressing the family, beating last years time, running a negative split.  These are all challenges but they don't hold the same level of fear as that very first time.  

Now that 2012 is largely over and I'm beginning to look forward to 2013 and my first marathon, I'm once again going to be striding into the unknown and I'm going to need a Plan.  The limited research I've done shows that most marathon training plans are 16 weeks long and will have you running 5 days per week.  For me that's not going to work so I've borrowed bits from here and there and written my own.  Having struggled to make time for 3 runs a week for the last year I've realised that 5 is just not going to happen.  I've also decided that getting myself to the start line injury free is going to be a feat in itself and decided to add a four week build up schedule to the front of my plan to ensure I'm adding miles in a more manageable way.  Last, for some reason my mind responds with less alarm to a schedule that is based on time of runs as opposed to set miles to run.  Somehow "run easy for 85 minutes" reads better than "10 Mile Long Run" to me even though I'll have to work out a 10 mile route to accommodate the time.  Not sure if this makes me weird or not?  My schedule contains all the right elements - weekly long slow run of increasing distance, easier weeks once in every 4, strength work for the first period and then adding in some speed sessions, plus lots of "recovery runs"  (conceptually illogical to my lazy brain) - and is now safely installed on my PC for ready reference and possible further tinkering as I go.  

Week one starts Monday 26th November, after which I'll officially be "in training", meticulously following The Plan and ensuring as far as I can that I don't end up with Poor Performance come 14th April.  

It seems to me that a lot of the "fun" in a fun run can be retrospective.  This exact thought occurred to me more than once today as I slogged it out around the 10 miles of HellRunner, my first cross country race since my school days.

Back in the day I'd try and smuggle a cigarette or two in my running shorts.  If I jogged out for the first mile I would have enough time to stop for a quick smoke out of range from the teachers before the last of the less athletic wheezed past and I could then run back with them.  I never did make the school team.  When I left school there were no teachers around to catch me smoking so I never felt the need to doing any more cross country running.

Fast forward almost 30 years and I found myself lining up for 10 miles of leg sapping hills, puddles and a jaunt through The Bog of Doom.  What was I thinking?  When I talked my running partners Ian and Paula into it (yes it was my idea) it had all seemed like so logical...Avoid that post Great South slump by having another target race lined up already, do something different, get out in the country, a bit of waist deep mud will be god for the skin surely.

I hadn't reckoned though on doing it with a serious dose of jet lag, zero prep runs, a belly full of hotel food and the tail end of a two day hangover (well if you're in the local area it's compulsory to drink Long Island Iced Tea isn't it??). I couldn't have felt less like getting out of bed this morning and running felt like an impossibility.  But a commitment is a commitment and in any case Ian and Paula were coming round to pick me up, so I had little choice.  

As it turned out I'm glad I did get out of bed and get into the bog.  Cross country is a different sport entirely to road running.  You just can't get into a rhythm in the same way that you can on the road.  Every slippery mud soaked descent is followed immediately by an ascent that will leave your legs crying out "enough" and your lungs bursting.  What's more you get to do it over and over again.  How can that possibly be fun?  Simple, you get to jump in muddy puddles, hundreds of them and your mum won't be there to tell you not off either.  You also get to satisfy the inner juvenile in you and wade deep into a stinking bog while they blast you with smoke and assault your ears with Chesney at full volume.  It took us a lot long to cover ten miles today than it ever would on the road, but we did it as a team and we had a whole heap of fun.  I'll definitely be back for more, but next time I'll hide my smokes in a waterproof bag...

Curry, lager, Chinese, crisps, Mars Bars, cake, full English breakfast, real ale, curry, Tequila Rose (don't ask) cheeseburger & chips, lager, wine, roast dinner, curry, Jagermeister (don't ask).  

The above is just a selection of the food I've consumed in the last eight days in my "week off" since I finished The Great South Run.  Not in itself a revelation, I've broken no gastronomic ground (gastrological maybe but that's a different topic entirely) and there is nothing there I've not consumed many times before (Tequila Rose aside).  The thing that has taken me by surprise when I look back on this list is the fact that I'd partaken in precisely none of the above during the four or five weeks running up to the Great South.  

I run so that I can eat what I like.  That's what I tend to tell people who ask and it was definitely the reason I began to run in the first place.  Hitting forty, metabolism slowing and my middle a little bit more Telly-Tubby like by the day.  No time to make a regular commitment to something like a football team, and too old and crap probably anyway, so get out on the road and run off the belly.  To be honest I was firmly in the camp that said running as a hobby was pointless and boring.  Give me a ball to chase, a pair of nylon shorts and ten team mates and I'd run all day.  OK, all day might be a lie but you get my drift, football was obviously worthy of my exertion but "just" running?  Totally pointless mate, totally pointless.  Nevertheless, the belly was gonna get me and the only way out was to run.

But something changed.  For some reason, and not really a very conscious one, things changed and I'm not running to enable my Wayne Slob diet anymore.  At some undetermined moment the run didn't become the means to the food but the food became the fuel for the run. I wasn't depriving myself of anything, I'd just changed my mindset and the reason I began running in the first place had just melted away.  So why am I running now?  What is it all about?  Why do I run?


Having polled opinion it seems there are many and varied reasons for people finding their way to this sport.  The thrill of achievement, keeping themselves sane, to get some "me" time, to support good causes, to combat stress, to lose weight, to outrun the law (I think the provider of that one was joking??).  For me there are two reasons...

I entered races because I had to have a target.  If I'd paid money and made a commitment then I bloody well had to get my backside into some shorts and get some miles in. No excuses Young, there's a date to be ready by, a training plan to follow and you HAVE to do it.  And so I did.  The achievement wasn't a particular time, or a negative split, or that I beat at least one banana clad runner home but that I made it round.  And in the aftermath of having made it round (without really realising it until now when I stop and think) I discovered the first reason why I run.  As I stumbled around in the finish area, medal around my neck, tide marks of sweat on my clothes, wringing wet and smelly, XL T-shirt in hand I saw my wife and eldest daughter.  On seeing me she ran towards me and jumped into my arms (no not my wife silly) and gave me the biggest and best hug a dad could ever get. She was proud of me, I'd made my daughter proud.  A year later I held her hand and we ran the 1.5k of the Great South Mini Run together.  A year after that, at age 6,  she insisted on running around on her own and she's already talking about next year and asking how old she has to be to run in the longer Junior race.    She watched the Olympics this summer with zest.  It was treat for her to be able to stay up late and watch Mo take his second gold.  She cheered along with me like a fellow junior madman as Mo ran that majestic last lap and refused to be passed (though she did stop short of jumping and cracking her head on the light fittings in the lounge unlike me).  For my daughter running is cool, being fit is cool, I did my bit to inspire that thought and I'm proud of that. 

Reason two had actually happened a few minutes before I stumbled around that finishing area in 2010.  I had finished, I'd achieved what I set out to do.  No judgment from anyone else, no three quarters through and abandoning the project in favour of starting another, no meeting or boss or committee to decide if the project was complete to their satisfaction, no judges giving scores - I had finished.  In fact, throughout my training many times I had set myself mini goals and had achieved them.  A sprint session, some hill work, my first 5k, my first hour of running non-stop, I set the target and, with a lot of determination, I'd achieved.  As my first year of running finished I entered some of the races and distances I'd done before and my previous time became something to beat, a PB seeker.  In last years GSR I went out too fast and died a thousand deaths in the home straight, this year I set myself the goal of a negative split, and I did it.  I'm not always successful.  I miss plenty of runs, I've abandoned many midway through and some days my legs are too heavy to carry me at anything other than a snails pace.  But I keep the show on the road and I get to the start line of my goal races and when I do there may be 25,000 other people there with me, but the only race I'm in is with me.  And if I beat my PB, or run the negative split, or maybe just get round at all (goals can legitimately be reset mid-race I'll have you know) I will be a winner.  Thousands may cross the line before me but none will win my race except me and I'll take a moment to pump the fist, smile and be proud of myself and feel the feelings that make keep me coming back for more.  No Mobot moment of course, I wouldn't want to bring down any light fittings again....