One week to go

I've not been particularly dedicated about running this week, with a couple of bare 3 mile runs and no interval training at all, unless you count running up the stairs and over the bridge at North Acton station in a desperate yet successful attempt to catch a late night tube after half a bottle of wine.

But with one week to go, I went out for my last 'long' prep run. I'm still pinning all my fitness hopes on the fact I've been dedicated about the long runs, but I've not really been approaching them with the same dedication to nutrition and hydration as I did when marathon training. Gone are the pasta and veggie sauce, and in with the cakes, curries and alcohol.

Miraculously though, I do seem to be able to get round even after such lousy preparation. God knows what speeds I could achieve if I did actually train properly and eat properly but I think we can consider this a control for the experiment!

Today's 10 miles was not much fun although not for the dietary reasons listed above. It was more to do with the route I chose. In a desperate attempt to try and go somewhere new, I decided to head off to the South-west and Southall.  For someone who has lived in this area as long as I have, this was a monumental miscalculation. Getting there was fine, but every local knows that Southall Broadway is always heaving with people. People 8 abreast. Shops have their goods outside the shop, covering half the pavement, and London's biggest and most vibrant Asian community cover the other half.

Negotiating the packed pavements was bad enough but the staring was the worst part. Clearly they do not get a lot of runners on Southall Broadway (because they have more sense and go for somewhere with less people) but those they do get are obviously not white females either. I lost count of the amount of people who actually stopped dead in their tracks just to stare open-mouthed at me and I got shouted at by two men. I don't know much Urdu/Hindi/Punjabi/Gujarati so I was unable to tell whether it was support or abuse but either way, it wasn't the easiest of runs for the self-conscious individual that I am.

On the plus side, it was sunny and I now have had lots of practice at weaving in and out of crowds of people, pushchairs and small children pointing.

I'm actually quite glad that my next extended run will be in a different country, with cleared roads and plenty of other runners, because I am bit fed of up of being a freak for exercising in public. Or exercising at all.

Roll on Brooklyn

LON

Travel tips

I was in conversation with a colleague today, explaining that I wouldn't be able to do something as I would be on leave. She asked,

'Where are you going?'
'New York'
'You're not running again, are you?
'yep'
'Can't you just go there and shop, like everybody else?'

I'll do my best to fit that in too...

LON

Not what I signed up for

I have just found out the start time for the New York half marathon - 7.30 am. What is it with Americans and their inability to lie in?
I realise it is probably this willingness to get up at sparrow fart to do sport that enables them to win so many medals, but still - I'm on my holidays, people. 9am would have done. This is earlier than the actual Marathon, for crying out loud

I blame all these walkers & run/walkers. I suppose they have to close Manhattan for about 6 hours so enable people to walk it. Bah.

And I bet it snows

Am jetlagged just thinking about it

LON

Uphill struggle

It's two weeks to go until the Manhattan half marathon and time for the longest training run - 12 miles.

I think it's safe to say I have learnt the hard way that eating your own body weight in scones and biscuits, followed by 3 champagne cocktails, is not the ideal prep for a 12 mile training run. Yesterday I went out for a champagne afternoon tea with two fabulous friends and ended up having two too many additional glasses of bubbly.

The alcohol itself probably wouldn't have been so bad but for the fact that you're essentially eating on an empty stomach. I don't think any sports nutritionist would classify a cherry bakewell and a macaroon as carb loading. But I managed to make it out today for the full distance.

The late winter weather helped. Cold, with a biting wind, but sunny as a July day - it was the perfect long distance weather. I just really need to plan my routes better and not include quite so many hills on a hangover.

It's true that I have not been devoted to my training for this early season half. Work and house selling/house buying has not left me with much free time during the week, so I've been squeezing short easy runs in wherever possible. I've not managed any intervals or speedwork, nor have I crosstrained (unless you count walking or permanently cleaning and tidying the flat ready for prospective buyers). But I have, bar one week when my ribs hurt too much, been religious about doing the long runs at a weekend. I've been pinning all my hopes on the endurance rather than the speed and I'm just hoping now that I don't achieve a personal worst on 21 March.

On the plus side, Manhattan is not going to throw any hills at me. Today, on the other hand, I managed to inlude 4 hills, 3 of which were long and steep. I never learn. I'm going to start factoring local gradient onto my wish list for househunting in the next few weeks, because I'm getting too old for all these hill climbs.

So fingers crossed for a flat course and a kind wind in a fortnight, and I might just make it round in a reasonable, if not record-breaking time.

LON

Distractions

I realise I have not been particularly blogtastic recently. Writing time is tight right now, what with half-marathon training plans, house-hunting and flat-selling and having the workload from hell.

My training has not been particularly inspiring. I run, it's cold, I come home, I shower and eat. Yadda yadda yadda.  My calf still hurts, my ribs still hurt. But I'll get round the course. It'll be fine.

I'm feeling particularly chastened today though after watching the BBC documentary about comedian Eddie Izzard's multimarathons last summer in aid of SportRelief. This amazing feat has been totally underpublicised so has not raised nearly enough money as it should - for guilty donations now, visit http://www.comicrelief.com/donate/eddie

Basically, Eddie ran 43 marathons in 51 days. He ran 6 days a week for 7 weeks in a row, covering England, Wales, Northern Ireland, Scotland and finished in Trafalgar Square in London on September 15th. He ran over 1100 miles as part of this mammoth fundraising effort. In virtual secret.

Now is not the time to go into the lack of publicity these efforts received, nor to wonder what you have to do to get Cheryl Cole's private life off the front of the UK press . It's more to marvel at the fact that Eddie is not an ultrarunning stalwart - he is a comedian who decided to tackle something huge. Something that he had not trained for and was not particularly fit for.

Last night's documentary (not shown in prime time or on a mainstream TV channel either, to continue the veil of secrecy) illustrated the whole project, from conception to execution, in all its blistered glory.

There was a lot of the programme I didn't really enjoy. I will retain the mental image of a member of his support team extracting the liquid from his blisters for years to come. I would like to also point out to the scaremongering BBC that people with flat feet can run without it being life-threatening (Izzard just wore orthotics in his trainers, like every other runner with flat feet). And there was absolutely no footage of him having an emergency toilet stop, which is not very realistic.

On the other hand, there were so many brilliant moments in the programme, mainly due to the personality involved. Izzard started off running his 30 mile a day in 8 hours, getting it down to nearly 5 hours by the end of the 7 weeks. But the programme showed just why Eddie took so long at the start. Because he is a mental fidget.

Wandering into shops to buy ice lollies, stopping off to give out free ice-creams to wellwishers for an hour in the west country, generally wandering off track (both mentally and physically) - at first Izzard just can't concentrate on the job in hand. Despite his trainer telling him to finish as fast as he can, to give him the maximum amount of rest, Izzard meanders all over the place, on some occasions only get 4-5 hours sleep in between runs.

What is really fascinating is watching him develop the running mentality from scratch - he goes from the sheer boredom to that weird obsessive focus you get after running regularly for a certain amount of time.

In the early stages, he runs much better on the sections where he has company. I suppose as a performer he needs an audience, whereas running is primarily a solitary activity. But, where the BBC and sport relief have bothered to tell people what he's doing, Izzard gets a good level of support from the locals on his route.

God knows what damage he has done to his mind, muscles and joints - probably not as many as the BBC would like to frighten people into thinking - but he certainly did me a lot of good. I was just pleased to see someone else get so distracted - some days I can run  for miles and not be able to remember my route at the end of it, I've been so switched off. 

And it reminded me that, in the scheme of things, 13.1 miles isn't really all that, is it?

LON