Week 1, Day1 - Bad Omen?

So it’s finally here, week 1 of my 16 week London marathon training programme. It still doesn’t feel quite real which makes me wonder if I’m taking it seriously enough. I knew this day was coming and in hindsight probably could have done a little more preparation (i.e. regular running) but at least I’m not starting completely from scratch having maintained some level of fitness over the past month or so. If I hadn’t done the Boxing Day 5 mile race then I think I really would’ve had reason to doubt my commitment to this massive task.

I’ve invested in a bit of technology to help me along my way – a Garmin 305 GPS-enabled trainer with heart rate monitor which will tell me how far I’ve run, how fast, my pace etc. I’ve only ever guessed my mileage in the past based on an average 10 minutes per mile so it’s really exciting and I’m hoping will improve my performance. I eagerly downloaded a sub-5 hour training schedule onto it from the Runners World (RW) website but nearly keeled over when I found the total mileage for week one was over 20 miles including a mid week 10 mile session. This was nothing like the schedule described on the site which has a total mileage of 13 with the longest session being 6 miles. Panic set in… I’ve posted a thread on the RW Forum asking for advice. In the meantime I’m following the plan as set out in my RW marathon newsletter.

So the first session was a ‘slow’ 2 miles which should take on average about 25 minutes. After work on Monday I stepped outside, in the dark, tooled up and layered to the eyeballs battling with the buttons on my Garmin getting colder by the minute. I set off only to find that the pavements were like the local ice rink. Snow is fine, it’s nice and crunchy but ice is a completely different beast. I didn’t want to end up with broken bones. I made it barely 200m from my house before I tentatively made my way back home, head hanging feeling like I’d suffered a massive set back already. I instantly regretted chucking in my nice warm gym membership (because of the credit crunch) and the option to run on a treadmill listening to some good tunes. My trainer (the boyf) suggested I run on the spot for 2 miles in our spare room but I told him I didn’t think that would be quite the same. Instead I surfaced the next morning and headed off to our local park and managed to knock out my first session on the snowy grass, in sub zero temperatures, watching the sun come up. I did my 'slow' 2 miles in 22 minutes and 31 seconds. Another session beckons today and I’m praying for a quick thaw.

p.s I promise not all training updates will be this long and detailed!!