It all hurts!

Well - thats that then.....

2009-05-26T04:43:00.001-07:00

The last 3 weeks have been full of worries about a whole heap of niggling injuries that I have had (left ankle, both knees, right thigh) and to be honest there were times that I was not at all sure if I would make it to Copenhagen at all but three weeks of almost total rest meant that I was actually not feeling too bad when I got on the plane from Aberdeen to Copenhagen on Friday.

On Saturday Steve and I went out for an easy 2.6km run around the lake outside his house, or at least that was the plan – we were aiming for 6 mins/km but we ended up running at 5:08 mins/km which might have been a mistake….then it was off to the exhibition to pick up my number and have a poke round the exhibits there. We narrowly managed to avoid signing up for the Amsterdam marathon which is for the best as it turned out to be 2 weeks after Loch Ness!

Sunday is all a bit of blur to be honest – the first 30k or so were easy (!!), I was feeling very strong and hitting the targets that I had set – 2 hours for 20k, 3 hours (actually 3:02) for the 30k mark and then it all went wrong – the left ankle injury came back and every step run became very sore – the last 12k took me 50% longer than it should have and by the end of it I was walking a fair percentage of the route which was very disappointing.

I got across the line in 4:42 as opposed to the approximate 4:15 - 4:20 time that I was looking at with a quarter of the run to go – can’t be helped though and on the bright side I knocked 1hour and 50 minutes off my previous PB from my ill-thought-out London attempt in 2001 - the way I see it, 2 more runs and I will be at world record pace.....

Running a marathon is an unbelievably hard thing to do and I have huge respect for everybody that ever goes through this. Now – bring on the next one, going to run loch ness in October with a sub 4:30 target and then the Seattle half in November to go for a second sub 2 hour half....

A huge thanks very much to everybody who has supported me and sponsored me through this. When all the donations are in I will have raised about 1500 pounds for Charity and that is a great thing, something that was a source of energy to me at times during the run - sorry for the smug grin in the pic below....….

hot hot hot!

2009-04-20T03:22:00.000-07:00

Stuck in Algeria this week and training is limited to hammering away on a truly rubbish treadmill (the belt sticks every now and again and almost catapults you off the stupid thing) in 27 - 32 degree heat with no air con, not been easy to keep going but I have managed to get a decent number of 10k runs in without too much incident, except for the fact that I have to change my t-shirt every 15 minutes while running - try eating a banana, drinking water and trying to change your T-shirt while running at 11km/hour on an unreliable surface if you fancy a challenge!

On the plus side I got the official picture back from Edinburgh this week - nicely done, they identify you by the number and put the chip time on the bottom of it too so all in all its a nice memento to have for when I am old and fat (probably this time next year to be honest!)

If it doesn't look like I am enjoying myself that's probably because I wasn't! Was pushing hard at that point to get back on pace..... never again!

Home tomorrow (hopefully) so back to running outside in the drizzle again - lovely! And just over a month to go till Copenhagen....

The first hurdle

2009-04-06T13:30:00.000-07:00

It was the Edinburgh half marathon at the weekend and I was in it as a test run for the big one which is now only 7 weeks away.... luckily I came out of it with a good result.

Things I learned were....

Get there early - I was there in plenyt of time and although I was nervous it halepd that I was not running around all over the place trying to get numbers etc etc etc. The race was delayed for 15 minutes which was a pain as it was coldish but I was glad that I was there in plenty time....

I don't running in crowds.... it was very hard to get a handle on pace etc with a big crowd about - they start in time order and I was too far back at the start of the race which held me up a lot (was 21 minutes for the first 2 miles which was was way slower than I hoped to be)

Running at a constant pace.... Point 2 above meant that I had to chase time for the middle - end of the race which was hard, on the good side I managed to do it and I felt strong at the end of the run but the thought of stepping my pace up from mile 2 on was hard....

Take the day off!.... I could hardly walk today and stairs were, frankly, impossible - luckily Luigi my boss let me have the day off at short notice so I could rest up - gawd only knows what would have happened otherwise!

All things considered though I am delighted - I was hoping for a time of between 2:05 and 2:15 and got over the line in 1:57 which is a huge boost for the second half of the marathon training.... the hard miles start here....(or more accurately they start tomorrow with a 10k recovery run!)

Getting serious now!

2009-03-25T13:20:00.000-07:00

Its getting close to the time when I need to start updating this thingy again.... so here goes...

training still going well, got the Edinburgh half marathon in 9 days time (sunday the somethingth of April) so last weekend I went out and ran the distance - managed it in 2 hours on the nose so am very happy, I am fairly nervous about the whole thing but hopefully if I can get a good time in here it will push me on for the long hard final weeks of training before the trip to Copenhagen... I have been mapping my runs out on http://www.walkjogrun.net - its a website based on google earth that lets you map out your runs and gives you distances. Its useful but seems to be quite slow at times (although that may be my steampowered laptop or my clockwork internet connection). Gives me some confidence in the distances I am running tho!

In other news I have signed up for the Inverness race in October and am also looking at combining a trip to Seattle with the marathon there in Novemeber (they have a half too if it all proves to be a bit too much for me)

Hopefully all this training will get me to my newly invented W:IL target of less than 1 soon....!

Barriers broken!

2009-01-22T10:29:00.000-08:00

So far January has been a fairly good month running wise with a couple of good milestones...

first half marathon distance run (and under 2 hours too which is great)
first 100k+ Calendar month - so far 106k in 22 days

The plan for this week is to try to run 50k in 7 days - up to now (4 days in) I have managed 31k so well on the way there.

Also have started swimming at lunchtimes from work at the gym just down the road from the office - I find swimming really really hard work but hopefully it will get easier....

In non fitness news - I have started driving lessons again, probably best to avoid the Bridge of Don on tuesday nights between 7 and 9 pm....!

A new injury!

2009-01-09T06:56:00.000-08:00

Played five a side footy yesterday and got a boot on the foot while going for a ball in the corner - did not think anything of it and went out last night for my weekly long run (normally do it at the weekend but turning 38 on sunday means I might be a bit worst the wear) did a half marathon distance which I was delighted with as I was sub 2 hours but when I got home I discovered that something had gone badly wrong....

Turns out that I had split a toenail playing football and when I went for the long run it cut into my toe - hey ho, live and learn I guess, will need to pay more attention to my feet from now on!

Anybody have any suggestions for music to run to......?

Happy New Year

2009-01-02T07:58:00.000-08:00

Happy New Year to all.

Just back from the first run of the year - nice easy 4.6k in 24 minutes. 4 Consecutive late nights and the festive overdulgance of the festive period seems not to have done too much damage. Cold though - respect to the runners in todays 10k run - that must have been a chilly one!

Hopefully it will be a bit warmer tomorrow as rumor has it that we are off for a game of golf - what madness is this!

Got back on the scales this morning and glad to say that there has been limited damage done over the festives with the weight sitting just above my 80kg target - few quiet days ahead while I finish off my next university assignment should see that back under control though.

Next task - find a driving instructor!!!

Happy Christmas to all.

2008-12-24T01:25:00.000-08:00

Just a quick post to wish anybody who happens across this embryonic blog all the best for the holidays. I am planning a nice quiet one as the family are in Seattle and am even contemplating a run tomorrow (weather permitting) - we will see though....

Have a good one folks!

Swedish training for a Danish race

2008-12-18T09:25:00.000-08:00

With the cold and the wind in Aberdeen and the ludicrously short days that we have at the moment (only 3 days to the shortest day of the year http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winter_solstice) I have been finding it a bit hard to get training properly. Luckily when I got home I discovered that my banana army charity t-shirt had arrived so I managed to get into the gear and head out for a quick session.

For something else to do I have been experimenting with Fartlek training (http://www.momentumsports.co.uk/TtFartlek.asp) in order to try to keep myself going and keep the interest there while I am thumping round the same old streets. I find that its an enjoyable way of keeping the training different and giving myself a challenge other than just keeping going - It also, I believe, lets me get a harder run in a shorter time.

7.425 km tonight in 40 minutes so overall a decent evenings effort, off tomorrow so another chance to get out in the country for a longish run before the work Xmas do - need to get that done as I suspect that Saturday may well be a hungover washout training wise.

p.s. This report is rubbish ( http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/7789302.stm) my head was bloomin freezing tonight!

My poor feet!

2008-12-16T23:54:00.000-08:00

Got back from baku on monday - luckily I had been able to get access to a treadmill on the rig so was able to keep running while I was away - in a fit of overenthusiasm I ran 25k in 2 days on it (10k one day and 15 the day after) all that this achieved was one whopping huge blister on my right foot - need to get a trip to the running shop to see if they can reccomend something to try to stop that happening again!

The longer runs are not hurting as much now and I feel more than happy with hour long training runs at the moment - I am ahead of the schedules that I have been looking at, most of them are 16 week plans so I am starting in plenty of time, lets hope that I don't lose focus over the festives! Got a day off today so will get a run in daylight for a change!!

There is also a webpage set up for the charity fundraising - check it out at http://www.justgiving.com/duncanmckay

Signing up

2008-12-16T03:52:00.000-08:00

Next step was to sign up for the big day - its a simple enough process on the website and there is a runners list so you can track that you are included http://www.copenhagenmarathon.com/ - I have also signed up to the Chris Hoy half marathon in Edinburgh as a training run http://www.edinburgh-half.co.uk/ so it looks like its too late to pull out now! Work have approved my holidays for CPH so its all go - time to get on with the training!!

I have also signed up to run for Leukaemia Research http://www.lrf.org.uk/ so thats one more good reason to keep up the training - hopefully I will be able to raise a good amount of funds for this very very good cause - means a lot to me!

So - How did this all start

2008-12-16T01:50:00.000-08:00

The question is - why would a fat, unfit middle aged man all of a sudden decide to run a marathon in 8 months time - and the answer is in the question!

It all started with standing on the scales one day and seeing that I was a disturbing 94.0 kilo (I am 1.79 mtrs tall so that works out as borderline obese). I had always been reasonably fit but the last few years had conspired to see me becoming increasingly sedentary and lazy - something had to be done!

The reason for training!!

I had run a marathon before (London 2001) but had done no training and always felt that I did not do myself justice (5hr 40) so had talked for ages about doing another one and when a mate in CPh said he was thinking about signing up I thought I might as well take the plunge too.... first thing to do was to lose some weight!

Cash in hand I headed out to buy a bike and a pair of running shoes and with a certain amount of enthusiasm I got started, the weight quickly dropped from 94 to 89 kilo and things were going well then - a plateu! To get over this I engaged my geek side and set up a spreadsheet setting targets for each week, this seemed to work really well as a motivational tool for me and I managed to keep below the line all the way...

The next step was to try to work out a training schedule....