marathonmummy

I know I say that I decided to run the marathon last April but the catalyst came a long time before that.

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And no, I don’t mean the Jedward version. I’m a Vanilla Ice sort of girl, and yes, I know that shows my age.

So here I am. Rested and iced yesterday, felt okay this morning, didn’t call the doctor. (Yes, I know.)

Breakfast, packed lunches, school run, preschool run. Quick visit to my mum, who told me off for not organising accommodation for the marathon before now (sorry Mum, I know, just because you work in the industry is no reason to leave it till the last minute, etc, etc…).
Picked up littlest marathonchick from preschool, gave him lunch, and spent the afternoon resting with icepacks on all sore bits. Hrmm. I’m not quite sure why my ankle took two days to decide it was sore, but I’m planning a gentle 3.75 tomorrow which I’m going to take super-slowly.

Talking of slowly, my lovely friend L pointed something out to me last night. I’m constantly telling everyone to remember that I am mega slow and that there’s lots more walk than jog on my runs. But I covered 10.51 miles on Saturday, and that’s a long way for a chocoholic couch potato. So yay me.

As it would seem that I really am running a marathon in 12 weeks’ time, I think it’s time for some of the technical stuff.

One of the benefits of all this running is that instead of thinking about dieting I’m thinking about diet.

I’ve been out for a run having eaten nothing (bad idea, got wobbly legs and came home after a mile with a headache), I’ve been out after drinking too much wine the night before (even worse idea: never run with a hangover) and I’ve learned that revolting as it is, nothing sets you up for a run like a bowl of porridge. I’m ashamed to admit that despite being Scottish, I think it’s utterly disgusting. It’s like eating lumpy, congealing wallpaper paste. But I force it down, because I know it works. I’ve tried adding fruit, cinnamon, raisins, maple syrup…it’s still gruesome.

I’ve also been doing some research into gels, which are lovely energy-giving little packets of gloop which you force down enjoy during long runs. I tried the orange flavoured Lucozade Body Fuel, because Lucozade have drinks stations every 5 miles on the marathon route. It had the consistency of PVA glue and tasted of orange-flavoured medicine. Then I discovered the deliciousness that is the Powerbar Strawberry & Banana Gel, which was so yummy I could just hoover it up as a snack (bad idea, given that it’s just sugar and electrolytes).

Alternatively, I can take my blogging friend Karyn’s lead: she did her first marathon fuelled by granola bars. Her finishing time was 3:37, qualifying her for the Boston Marathon, which is pretty impressive. Think it’ll take more than granola bars, though, otherwise I’d be fab at running already.

Luckily Karyn has some brilliant advice on her blog on pre, post and during race nutrition. She and carpeviam are my two favourite marathon bloggers – both of them could probably run two marathons in the time it’ll take me to do one, but they’re inspiring and have encouraged me from the very beginning.

In other news, I drove 24 miles to visit a friend today, and every single mile I was imagining how I’d be feeling by that point. I think I’m getting a bit obsessed.

*Nestle

I can run 8 minute miles. Or I could if I didn’t die of tiredness after about three seconds.

My jogging speed is faster than it needs to be.

My heart rate is, well, it’s going to get better, isn’t it?

And it really helps if you don’t turn the Garmin off after two minutes, whilst debating what to do about the walkers in front, and then forget to turn it back on for ten minutes, because it’s kind of hard to get a good idea of how the run goes when you miss the middle out.

At least I managed to get out today – we’re forecast heavy snow (it’s already falling) and I think the children will be off school for the rest of the week, so it’ll be treadmill trundlings for me. But I ticked off run #1 on the 16 week marathon training schedule:

Week One
Mon Rest
Tue 30 mins: run 3 mins, walk 1
Wed 40 mins: run 3 mins, walk 2
Thu Rest
Fri 40 mins: run 3 mins, walk 1
Sat Rest
Sun 80 mins: run 3 mins, walk 2

Next year (and can you believe that I’m writing this!) we’re going to do it faster! When Zoe and I were out on Boxing Day, she said ‘you know, I have a feeling this is going to turn us into…runners’ (said as if it was a bad thing).