A Lost Day

I wanted to do a 10 miler today but woke up feeling feverish and coldish so rather fed up. I'm not doing nearly enough miles, as it is.

Bummer

Hello Everyone - Starting Again

And so we start again; both this blog and marathon training. Having failed to get a place in the ballot for the 2012 Virgin London Marathon (VLM), or through a charity I was pretty well happy to let this year pass by without a marathon. Now, I'm a guide at the Royal Navy Submarine Museum on the submarine HMS ALLIANCE, which is looking to raise funds to complete its refit. I'd let it slip that I'd run marathons before. A little while later the Director mentions that the Museum is hoping to get 5 places in the VLM through Prince William and Prince Harry's Charities and would I be interested in joining the team...... the bid for places was successful and so I signed up.

I'm 55 now and the wrong side of 15 stone so I'm not finding the running easy.. I'm getting out on the road regularly, even in this bloody freezing weather, and doing the miles. My legs are feeing heavy when I'm running and motivation is hard to come by but I'm persisting s there it is.

We do of course have a Justgiving link and this is it www.justgiving.com/HMSALLIANCEandPete/
and folks can also donate by text by texting DUTW51 £xx to 70070. Just change the xx to the figure you'd like to donate..

10k On The Rower

Concept2, the makers of the famous, ubiquitous and eponymous rower are running a challenge series called the Challenge Series 7. Each month the entrants have to log their best effort at different events which have so far included 4 minutes, 1609 metres (a mile), 2000 metres (Olympic distance), 5000 metres and this month 10000 metres. Today was the last day to log results for the 10k and I scraped in at 4pm with a time of 48m 36.9s Such a long row was a bit tough on my girly soft hands, but I felt quite good after.

I really like the rower - it's such a good workout, working on all the major muscle groups as well as on the CV system. One year it helped me prepare for a marathon; I had a painless knee swelling which was worrying so I tried to keep off the high impact stuff and did a lot of training on the rower, doing one or two good runs a week.  When it came to running around London I was pleasantly surprised how good I felt, and how strong my knees felt.

I intend to make it a regular part of my training for this year's marathon, particularly as I'm overweight at the moment so if I can reduce some of the shock to my joints that's all to the good :)

Oh yes. Thankyou, Keris at LA Fitness Fareham for the loan of a pair of shorts. Clever clogs here forgot his