And they’re off! Marathon one is in the books, and we are injury free and looking forward to the February episode.

This was a 3.3 mile loop (8 of!), from a centrally located Race HQ, along the towpath by the Rover Stort, back along the other side of the river which was more of a trail, cross a footbridge back onto the towpath, back to HQ. Race HQ consisted gazebos housing some friendly helpers, a wide array of sweets and snacks, and a clever drinks system allowing you to order water and different flavours of squash ready for your next visit.

In theory, I thought this looked like a potentially quick marathon. However, in practise it certainly was not. The course was used for a similar event the day before, so the trial side of the course was muddy. Then it rained all night, do the course suffered further. The HQ area was also getting pretty brown. I really had not worn the right shoes, so it became a bit of a challenge just to stay upright.

I think as an event, this was a good one, and I’d love to have run it in better conditions, but hey, it is January. What made this one for me, was the company. There was a good friendly collection of about 100 runners out on the course, doing a range of distances. I got chatting to a very friendly chap within the first half a mile, and we ended up running with each other pretty much all day and rang the finishing bell together.

Officially 57 of the runners there completed a marathon, I finished 23rd of those in 4:55:23. Not a time on paper I’m proud of, but I know how hard that was and I’m pleased to have got through it without incident, and that’s 26 miles in the bank 🙂

Thank you Phoenix Running for a good start to the year!

Am finding this quite a tricky pastime! Especially along with the logistics involved with selecting and entering 12 marathons. Then there is the travel, especially when you live on an Island, where to stay. Oh, and I guess it would be good to fit some training in as well!

I found pre-Christmas, when I took on the challenge a bit of a write off. Most people are focused on Christmas, and then of course comes the long slog through January without any wages.

I have spent that time focusing on some fundraising events which I hope will get me a long way towards the target.

Here are the events I’ve been planning that hopefully will come off…

A couple of parties. I put on some food / cocktails and entertainment, my guests make a donation. Everyone is a winner hopefully, I raise some money, we all have a good time!

A Race Night. This is aimed at a different group of friends. At a pub, again hopefully we raise a few pounds whilst having a good time.

I’m awaiting confirmation on a treadmill run at a local supermarket. I will run something like a marathon distance on the treadmill, hopefully with my kids doing some bucket shaking.

Probably the biggest event, is a Frolic run that I have organised. This is a fun run, staged over 5 hours, with a choice of laps to choose from. People choose which laps, so it is completely flexible. Some people might come and run 4 or 5 miles, some might run a marathon. I am expecting a few people to use it as a marathon prep run. I was a bit shocked by this event, as I did the groundwork, launched it as an event on Facebook, and within a day or 2 it had 250 people interested!

Throughout all these events, I will sell tickets to my prize draw. I’ve been very lucky in that businesses I’m friendly with have agreed to put up some brilliant prizes. We have Festival Tickets, Shop Vouchers, Beauty Vouchers, Tickets to the Racing and lots more.

Hopefully with all these things put together, we might be getting close!

So the training ‘plan’ changed a lot in the run up to marathon #1.

I originally had quite an intense plan, that involved losing quite a bit of weight, and completing 3 x 20 mile training runs before tackling the Phoenix Excalibur One marathon on 27th Jan.  So that would pretty much match what I had done before when I trained hard for London last year.

In the end I thought better of it, and decided that doing that level of training for marathon #1, was going to be too much, too soon.  When I did that at the start of 2018, I had the luxury of taking a break after I had run the marathon (well after the second marathon).  This time I won’t be doing that, there is a long year of marathons to conquer.

So the new thinking is that marathon #1 really is considered part of the training for other marathons to come this year, hopefully some of which can get back down around the 4 hour mark that I managed last year.

So on the run up for marathon #1, I did manage to get my mileage back to something sensible, putting in 80 miles for November, 90 for December.  January should be back over the 100 mark again, which is where it needs to be.  I’ve manage to shake off half a stone of where I’d got to after spending last June and July eating, drinking and not running much.  I did manage 1 x 20 miler, around new year.

My last significant training run was this week, 6 days before marathon #1.  That was 11.6 miles at around the same pace that I did the first half of my sub 4 marathon in, really as a bit of a test to see where my heart rate would be at and how I would feel.  So Sunday will be a bit of an unknown quantity.  I need to start out slower than the test run, but how it is going to feel after 20 miles, who knows.  I’ll find out at about lunchtime on Sunday!

So the idea for this challenge came about a few months ago, but here we are…. it is now 2019, and we are about to kick off.

It has been a quiet start.  Over the Christmas period it isn’t really a good time to fundraise, so it has been a case of head down, get ready for the first marathon of the year.

Alongside this, there has been a whole host of charity fundraising events to start organising.  Looks like the next few month will be very busy, and the diary as been filling up.

The first marathon is the Phoenix Excalibur One Marathon in Essex.  Looks like quite a pleasant and flat route, only issue I can see is that it’s an 8 lap course.  Already checked, headphones will be OK and may well be needed!

Did have one little blip in my preparations.  I forgot that before I bit the bullet and took on this challenge, I had entered the Stubbington 10K race.  Was a bit of a shock when I got the email from the organisers checking I was all ready!!