Just like the true athlete that I am what else would I do the day before the loch ness marathon but run another parkrun?
The walk to the event gave me a good opportunity to walk the last mile of the marathon, I doubt it will be that quiet tomorrow!
Here’s to a nice gentle run today, ticking off another Scottish parkrun.
Remember – you can show your appreciation here : http://www.JustGiving.com/MNDScotland or by texting ross70 £10 to 70070.
Well – that’s my final marathon of the year done and what a way to end it. Fantastic location, fantastic people/support, fantastic weather (cold and dry) and a personal best by over 14 minutes!
You can review my marathon stats here.
The stats make interesting reading (if your into stats or are a runner).
It shows how my pace per mile has changed since my first marathon and also how Chester compared with Dublin (4 weeks apart). It also finally drummed it into me that starting slow DOES enable you to hold a more consistent pace for longer.
As you should know by know my plan for the year was to run four marathons, one in each of Wales, Scotland, England and Ireland for MND Scotland.
The start of October saw the English leg with the Chester marathon.
My worst race ever.
Prior to the 2012 Edinburgh Marathon I have only ever not finished one race before – a Strathclyde parkrun when I pulled my hamstring.
Bearing in mind I did the Great Welsh Marathon last month – I was just doing some “easy” runs as I “know” I can “do” a marathon so I was just treating this period as an extended taper/recovery period.
On Sunday the day was very sunny and hot.
I had multiple applications of factor 50 sunscreen – been upping my hydration in the days before, the only thing I did differently was grabbing a tuna sandwich rather than my usual porridge.
My plan was to run 12:00 miles in the hope of beating my PB of 05:42.
I knew I’d have to revert to a run walk strategy from about mile 19ish but I should have enough in the tank for about a 05:30 finish.
I knew I would start way faster than my planned pace so for the first three miles it was a case of forcing myself to slow from 10:00 to 11:00 until I settled at a comfortable 11:30 pace.
I started feeling a bit “wobbly” at about 9 1/2 miles so I had a walking break, a gel and some water.
This was fine until mile 10 when I “lost” my breakfast – not exactly lost – I knew EXACTLY where it was !
More water and gel and I soldiered on with a walk/jog until mile 12 (15:00+ mins per mile) when I knew if at this point I was having to play mental games to force a jog – there was no way I could continue.
After 20 minutes sitting by the roadside – thanks to everyone who took the time to check I was OK – I started the long slow walk back to the start.
I have two more marathons in the plan – Chester 7th October and Dublin 29th October so hopefully the heat will not be as big a debilitating factor.
I still “owe” a Scottish marathon from my 4 marathon plan – I have an inkling as to how to address this – stay tuned for more info!
This year my fund-raising for MND Scotland involves running four marathons in Wales (Llanelli), Scotland (Edinburgh), England (Chester) and Ireland (Dublin).
Last weekend saw the first of these.
photo credit: aye_shamus
After my first ever #parkrun DNF (Did Not Finish) due to pulling my hamstring I have finally LEARNED my lesson.
A Warmup/Cooldown and stretching regime is MANDATORY!
My question is this:
What do you consider to be the “best” options?
Feel free to send links to YouTube etc as appropriate.
For those that don’t know, my eldest daughter Emma Berry Goodman passed away in September 2008 from Motor Neurone Disease. Whilst she was with us we were greatly helped by three fantastic charities: MND Scotland, Marie Curie Cancer Care and the Childrens Hospice Association Scotland (CHAS).
For the last three years I have dedicated a years fundraising to each of these charities. This year my challenge was to run 1,000km in 2011 for Marie Curie Cancer Care.
If everything goes to plan then I will achieve my 1,000th kilometer when I run in Strathclyde Parkrun – event number 86 on Saturday 17th December.
I know that this is an expensive time of year but if you could see your way to giving a donation at https://www.justgiving.com/1000k-in-2011 or by texting “Ross70 £5” to 70070 – feel free to adjust the amount as you see fit!
Every £20 raised helps to provide 1 hour of nursing care and I can personally vouch for how invaluable the Marie Curie are!
Thank you all for your donations and your support and encouragement in this past year!
If you would like to see just how far 1,000km actually is have a look here.
OK it’s been a week since I finished my second marathon:
This was the first “big” race in my year long 1,000km in 2011 for Marie Curie.
To just add an extra element to the marathon my friend Andy from Reynard Nursery asked me to tweet every mile. I knew every mile would be very offputtingbut I thought I would give it a go. My marathon day tweets start here. I had experimented with VLingo for my BlackBerry which I was carrying anyway. My pre race day tests were all fine – press a button – speak – translated into text – press a button to confirm sending it to Twitter – easy. On the day, being a little breathless and having a howling gale (more of that later) things didn’t go quite to plan. “Four Miles” was translated as “F******* Hell” and “Five Miles and Feeling Good” was translated as “Hi Smiles and Feeling Good”. I reverted to typing after that.
As you should know by now I’m running the Edinburgh Marathon to raise funds for Marie Curie Cancer Care. This event is part of my challenge of running 1,000km in 2011. Every £20 raised for Marie Curie helps provide one hour of nursing care. Marie Curie were a fantastic help with my daughter Emma before we lost her to MND.
If you are feeling generous I will be accepting donations until the end of the year at http://www.justgiving.com/1000k-in-2011
If you would like to follow me during my marathon I have set up my phone so you can track my progress:
Another way you can track my progress is via Twitter: https://twitter.com/rossgoodman
I will be attempting to live tweet during the run using VLingo on my phone which should tweet whatever I speak to it. Who knows how well it will work when I’m a bit “breathless”.
As you may knowI am planning to run 1000km in 2011 to raise funds for Marie Curie Cancer Care.
To date I have run 164km or 16.4% of my target distance – unfortunately I am only at 4% of my fundraising target – Never mind I have the Meadows (half) marathon, the Kilomathon and the Edinburgh Marathon in the next few months to give the fundraising a boost.
I thought it would be fun to visualise just how far 164km is, turns out I would be almost at Newcastle by now!
You can see this by clicking here.