Cool Runnings : Issue 7
Snow, snow and more snow!
Well that was fun wasn’t it? Two weeks of either snow or ice on the pavements has meant that the training plan has had a great big chunk bitten out of it in the last couple of weeks, 33 miles missed to be precise. Whilst that seems like a lot of training to miss my personal view is that the risk of injuring myself far outweighed the benefit of running in conditions like we’ve had recently but mine is clearly not a unanimously held view as I have heard of a few dedicated souls who have braved the snow, ice and sub zero temperatures to go running this week. Blinkin’ nutters!! I have to say that somewhat guiltily there’s a bit of me that hopes they ended up on their backsides in front of a load of high school kids, that’d teach ‘em for being so hard core.
But thankfully the snow and ice have cleared now and training resumed last Friday with a little three mile refresher before work and then on Saturday it was off to Milton Keynes for a night on the beer with my soon to be brother-in-law on his stag do. Not classic training preparation I’ll grant you but thankfully Mick is knocking on a bit (that should help find out if he reads this or not) so it was a fairly civilised affair and I managed to keep my alcohol intake down to four pints and a couple of shots and sneaked off to bed fairly sober at about 1.00am for my beauty sleep before the following day’s massive 14 mile training run. 14 miles! That’s over half a marathon and a full two miles further than I had ever run before! Lummy!
Unfortunately my daughter didn’t read the script which quite clearly stated daddy would need a nice lie in before his run so just before 7 O’clock we were up and having breakfast before settling down to watch the 7.35am Match of the Day re-run. Well, if you’ve been dragged out of bed at that God forsaken hour on a Sunday morning you might as well make the most of it.
A couple of hours later and my other half finally got up and I was out on the road on a beautiful crisp and sunny winter’s morning. Five miles and three quarters of an hour later I had reached Willen Lake where my other half arrived in perfect time to give me a drink and a bit of encouragement.
After another gruelling hour and twenty five minutes my little legs were aching and I was stumbling along all but spent, but I had made it. Fourteen whole miles had passed under my feet and the feeling of accomplishment at having completed the distance helped to temper my exhaustion. It’s hard to believe that only a few months ago I had never run further than a mile or so but here I am clocking up 14 miles in a shade under two hours ten minutes. I know I’ve still got a heck of a long way to go but I’m starting to believe that this marathon really is achievable.
But it isn’t just about the running is it? What I really need to start thinking hard about is how on earth I’m going to raise £500???
