It is in human nature to try to succeed, improve and compete. When I started running, it was all about getting round, making it pass the finish line. Now…well, let’s just say I have become more competitive. Not every race is a race though. When it comes to marathon training I use half-marathons as training runs to practice my pace rather than trying to run a personal best for the half-marathon itself.

As I have mentioned before, I am currently planning to run two other marathons this year so the competitiveness is sitting on a bench at the moment and I am focusing more on the endurance. Next year, I would like to run a half-marathon each month so the chase for PBs will be back on. The important thing is to remember what is the ultimate goal and understand and accept that we can’t always run a PB.

My best time for 10K for example is 54:33. If I do 10K as a  training run, it will be around 58 minutes. And it is absolutely fine. The same goes for a half-marathon. I know I can do it under 2 hours but time around 02:05 is more realistic when I practice my pacing. The only distance I always push for is the 5K because it is short enough for me to recover quickly even if I push harder. Although I haven’t done any 5K races this year yet…I think it’s time to revisit Parkrun and beat the 25 minutes mark!

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     Are you training for a race but feeling constantly tired, have niggles niggling, and are in a state of panic you are not doing enough? Stop. These are just few signs that you are doing too much. Your body needs rest. Packing in extra runs one week before a race will do more harm than help. Take a break, eat, relax and most importantly get plenty of sleep.

I missed two weeks of training due to an illness during a rather critical period of marathon training and it is very tempting to try to squeeze it all in now. However attempting a 20 miler so close to the London marathon (which is on 26^th April) would be insane. I have to trust myself, my body, and the training I have done in the past 12 weeks that I will make it on the day. Although I haven’t done as much as I hoped, I’d rather be as fit and rested as possible. The last thing you want is to be tired and in pain at the start.

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     Ten days to the London marathon now! I’m pretty relaxed about it now but I had some hard times as I was not able to train for two weeks due to an illness and only got back to it this Monday. Nevertheless my first 5k run on Monday went surprisingly well so I am confident that I will get around just fine, even if not fast. It is a good thing that we have a very generous cut off time of 8 hours.

Marathons are not a walk in a park but the sense of achievement is addictive, and being part of such an iconic race as London is very special and frankly, I can’t wait for the day to come! This year it is even more special for me because my sister will be here to support me. My sis is now also a runner (I am taking full credit for that J) and she did her first race just few weeks ago in Bratislava as part of the Bratislava marathon festival. I made her company and also ran the half-marathon the next day. I surprisingly still haven’t run the full marathon in my hometown although I registered few years back….but my training didn’t really go according to the plan plus it was snowing on the day and the temperature outside read -5C, conditions I was not used to, so I was glad to miss it. But it is on my list.

I am also strongly leaning towards running the Helsinki marathon in August this year but will definitely decide only after London. Singapore marathon in December is also still on the list though I am bit perplexed by their ban on chewing gums. This creates bit of an issue for me as I am addicted to chewing gums almost as badly as I’m addicted to coffee….

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     For me personally, a long run is anything over 90 minutes though if I train for a marathon it increases to two hours. They are important because your body needs to get familiar with the feeling of fatigue and they are a building block to your endurance. They are very rarely fun, at least for me. I find long training runs hard. That is partly the reason why I try to sign up to as many races as I can during a marathon training. To have the support of the crowd and the company of other runners makes a lot of difference. Even if the races are de facto just training runs. The goal is not to achieve a new PB – they are about practicing my pace, I am testing the gear and planning the nutrition for the marathon day. And they are way more fun than running on my own.

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     I’m from a metric country so getting used to the imperial units took some time.  Weights and volumes are still pretty much a mystery to me but I think I can say I’m bilingual when it comes to miles and kilometres. Sometimes I prefer one, sometimes the other. It’s less miles than kilometres and the kilometres are going faster than miles even if the distance is the same. You know it’s just 26 miles compared to 42 km in a marathon 🙂

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     No matter what you are trying to achieve, be it your first 5k or a first marathon, important thing is to enjoy yourself. Don’t do something you find tedious. I ran the Reading half marathon on 22nd March and it was the best race I’ve done so far. Yes, even better than the London Marathon! The organisation was superb, the route was great, the crowds were amazing, there was live music and bands, weather was unbelievable favourable to us and I found myself enjoying the whole day. There was no PB for me – nowhere near actually, I was off by seven minutes, but I really didn’t care or mind. I finished the run into the Madejski stadium with a smile on my face and made it my mission to recruit whole bunch of people to run this race in 2016. If you are thinking about running a half next year – do this one.

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NB

Also it’s my mum’s birthday today!

      Every training program out there will tell you that adding a hill session to your schedule is a really good idea. I have only recently come to terms with hills. For a long time, I was avoiding them as they sounded as too much work – and really, I only ever signed up for flat races anyway. But. In a very strange way, hills started to become fun. You know, here and there a sneaky incline or a bridge breaking the monotonous flatness. I live in central London so inclines and bridges are pretty much all I get but you can work with these. I did couple of Kenyan hills workouts at the pedestrian subway at Waterloo which was surprisingly empty compared to the rush hour craziness around the station. Also laps around the IMAX cinema made for a nice break between the intervals. I was quite lucky there wasn’t a film premier though.

And the best thing about a hills session is that there is always a downhill section.

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   To tell you the truth, I was undecided on ‘G’ for a while. Gym is logically the first thing that usually pops in people’s mind when it comes to exercise or running and I thought I will go for it as it is so logical – pros and cons of running on treadmill versus running outside etc. (I definitely prefer running outside but I like the control when running on a treadmill – I just thought I might as well mention it.)

However me being me, the first thing that popped into my head when I started thinking about these daily posts, notably ‘G’ was a goodie bag. I guess I am bit materialistic. I just love them. You never know what you get. There is always bottle of water and an energy bar – which is super useful after a race, and a clean and most importantly dry t-shirt. Yes, there are lot of flyers, leaflets and samples that may not necessary be of interest but I love the surprise! The best goodie bag I received was from the London marathon (in 2012) – not only we got one after the race, we got one before as well! And it had a can of ale in it. Enough said.

What I am annoyed about is that sometimes the products are very ‘manly’. I mean, I like the smell of 24 hour deep dive deodorant but not necessary on me. If you stick a male deodorant in the bag, give something to the ladies too….or keep it unisex. Women are more and more signing up and running races – I believe they form around 40% of the runners nowadays – and we deserve to be noticed.

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