Welcome to my first blog post. It has been a while since I wanted to start sharing my training and racing experiences. One can say that I have developed into somewhat of a triathlon and running geek!
I started running last year and have really enjoyed being able to complete a relatively injury free and successful year.
After a couple of half marathon races I competed in the London Marathon. I missed my target time but in reality I did quite well considering it has only been four month since I started doing any running, and looking back at the training logs I have barely averaged 25 miles a week.
Over the summer months I started with a pretty serious plan to compete in the 2010 October Amsterdam marathon and set myself a goal to finish it in under 03:10:00.
Build up races included a 5km, 10km, Olympic distance triathlon and a very enjoyable half marathon in September. I managed to reach most of my targets and credit most of my training to taking it relatively easy with consistent mileage.
I modified a marathon program that I found in a book called
Run Faster from the 5K to the Marathon: How to Be Your Own Best Coach by Brad Hudson and Matt Fitzgerald. I have read many books and this one has been one of the best so far. I will write more about the key points that I have taken from this.
From this week I am in full swing with my marathon training program for the Virgin London Marathon 2011. My big race for this year will be the Ironman Cozumel 2011 race in November on the Island of Cozumel in in Mexico just off the shore from Cancun. Do yourself a favour and have a look at this Island on Google maps, it is beautiful. Although most would think of beach holidays when taking in the breathtaking landscape, I imagine how it will be to swim in the clear water, bike through the scorching heat and battling the super strong crosswinds before trying to complete the marathon without slowing down too much.
After the Amsterdam marathon, which I completed in 3:08:34 :-) I took a month off from running completely, so I have slowly been getting back into it.
Yesterday morning after some Christmas and New Year festivities I got ready for my weekly long run and was quite surprised when I consulted my training program to see that I was due to run a hard 10 miles wedged in between a mile to warm up and cool down. It might have been easy to excuse myself for taking the easy option and going for a nice and slow aerobic workout of 15 miles or so, but it being the beginning of the New Year spurred me on and I decided to go for it.
Looking back I am quite glad that I managed to complete the muddy run where I got lost in Wimbledon common before turning to more familiar ground in Richmond Park where it was quite muddy and crowded....dodging baby buggies is not my favourite pastime :-)
It is a good gauge of my fitness and I am really looking forward to the coming months. The legs feel ok today as I went for a steady and freezing 30 mile ride with some friends this morning. My aim is to keep this up as it would be good to share some of my training and even be able to help other motivated starters and more experienced runners and triathletes by sharing gear reviews, training plans and give some race reports.
Happy training!
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