I was quite lucky when I did my couch to 5k programme to start running; in the 9 weeks it took I didn’t experience any injuries or illnesses. The only real obstacle I had to overcome was my own lack of cardiovascular fitness, which is exactly what C25K is designed to do. 5 months on, and moving into marathon training I’m having a very different experience though. Now I’m finding obstacles and things have got a whole lot more challenging. I’m now trying to run 4 times a week, rather than 3, and one of those runs is interval or hill training, and another will be a long distance run. It’s all been a bit of a shock to the system and its been hard making that shift, both physically in terms of how my body is holding up, but also logistically! Trying to fit in 4 runs a week when you work, and when you have a three year old, and when your husband is also trying to fit 4 runs in to train for the same race can be an organisational nightmare! I haven’t managed it every week yet, but my body and my brain are learning and I’m getting better at it. Just as I was starting to get into the swing of the 4 runs a week, and all the crazy plyometric exercise & internal training malarkey I caught a bug. I spent 4 days wiped out on the sofa, and the best part of 10 days hacking my lungs up. Not ideal for running. As I started to recover I took my running kit in to work to go participate in my weekly Colmore Business District running group. A slow and difficult run, but none the less I managed it following my illness, so I was feeling like I was back on track. A few hours later though, and my exhaustion befuddled my brain and I managed to leave my gym bag on the train. 5 days later and we are yet to be reunited, so I am sadly lacking in heart rate monitor and decent quality trainers. Still, nothing is going to stop me training for my marathon (well, except the aforementioned exhaustion, logistics and illness) so I ran my 6 mile weekend run in my old trainers. Not ideal as they’re pretty basic and I had rather sore legs & feet afterwards. Not to be discouraged I tried another solution to my absent trainers last night & embarked on a cross country run! In the spirit of overcoming as many obstacles as possible we got lost, found an angry man & his angry dogs, retraced our route, visited the same church repeatedly in our meanderings, got scared by cows and nearly angered a badger….but we made it. And do you know what, it was one of the most amazing runs I’ve ever done. So find me some more obstacles (and maybe my lost gym bag while you’re at it), and I’ll keep trying my best to hurdle them all.
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Some of you may have noticed that since first setting up this website, the nominated charity has changed. So I thought I had better explain. When I first decided to take on the 1000 mile running challenge I chose to support Imagineering; they are an amazing charity & I would definitely recommend we all go and become tutors at their after school engineering clubs. When I won a place on the Nepal marathon though I started learning more about that.
During my week in Nepal, not only will I be acclimatising to the altitude, I will also be doing volunteer work in the form of rebuilding a school which was destroyed by the devastating earthquakes in April 2015. Over 9000 people died in those earthquakes, and thousands of buildings were destroyed, many of which were schools. In a country where not all children had access to education before the earthquake, the long term damage done by the loss of more schools is immense. Global Action Nepal were already committed to bringing “education for all” to Nepal; to building schools, training teachers and supporting communities, and to having a gender equality commitment in those schools. Since the earthquakes they have only become more passionate, providing hundreds of temporary learning centres whilst they continue to support the building of new permanent schools. To me, this seems an incredible, and very immediate cause. It’s also one I will be personally involved in when I fly out to Nepal for my marathon, so it’s the charity I am choosing to support with my 1000 mile run as well. I decided in May that I wanted to push myself and run 1000 miles in a year for charity, so as part of my research I started checking out interesting races I could run, and following running organisations on twitter. One of these was @runningadv who tweeted about a competition to win a place in the Nepal marathon which I entered. To win the place you had to write about why you deserved it; I wrote about all my couch to 5k efforts, and also about my plan to run 1000 miles for Imagineering. Matt, running coach & director of Running Adventures, clearly decided I was a worthy cause, and awarded me the marathon place. Finding out was a real rollercoaster of emotions; delight, surprise, gratitude, and also horror – what was I letting myself in for?! Still, the delight and gratitude won out, and I committed to taking my place (alongside my long suffering husband who has also been given a place as part of the competition, it is on the eve of our wedding anniversary after all) in the Nepal Marathon in November. There’s something about winning this place, rather than choosing and paying for it, that makes me feel all the more strongly about wanting to run well. To complete the marathon, and to do so in the best time I am capable of. I don’t just want to make myself proud, I suppose I also want to prove to Matt (and to Nick, the CEO of Impact Marathons who are the other generous party involved in providing the competition prize) that he made the right choice in picking me as the competition winner. So, in preparation both for the Nepal Marathon, and for a year of running 1000 miles, I have now started my official marathon training plan, put together by Matt. This meant on Monday I donned my Imagineering t-shirt, grabbed my running buddy Charlotte, and ran 8 miles in the 19°C heat and the high pollen count. Here we are enjoying the views on Coventry-Kenilworth greenway:
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AuthorChloe is running 1000 miles to raise money for Global Action Nepal. She's also an engineer and a Mum. Archives
August 2017
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