Berlin: T-Minus 99

It's 99 days until the Berlin Marathon.

That means there is A LOT of running to do over the next 14 weeks. Now that I am back from a week in Tenerife (making full use of all inclusive food and drink, rest assured), it's now time to move preparation up a notch or two. With that in mind, I plan to write more in the build up for a couple of reasons:

1. It's a good motivator
2. I can bang the 'please sponsor me!' drum loud and proud
3. I can justify the amount of food (chocolate, I mean chocolate) that I will inevitably pile through 

In other news, my teeth are looking pretty good at the moment. Dentist Donna reckons the braces will be off at the end of July or in early August so I better start getting those applications ready to be a teeth model (*ping*).

I ran the Ramathon a few weeks back in 1hr 37 which was about 12 seconds faster than my previous best (on a not-downhill-all-the-way route which doesn't really count), so that was good. Was nice to run it with a few mates who also set quickest times for themselves which I applaud. The day itself was clouded by the death of a runner no more than 300 yards from the end which is always massively upsetting. It does pose questions about better health screening being made mandatory before running such distances I think - and I'm not talking about a tick box on website to say you're all fine and dandy, but something more professional and conclusive. It is probably something I should look at doing before Berlin. My thoughts are with the poor family and friends of the runner who died, it's such a terrible shame.

I went to see Springsteen the other week where an acoustic 'Thunder Road' stole the show - knocking 'Never Forget' by a full compliment of Take That in to #2 of the best songs I've witnessed in person.

I joke, of course. 'Patience' was waaaaaay better.

A week in Tenerife was a good way to recharge and freshen up the legs, and there are few better ways to spend time than on a golf course in the sunshine with your mates - even when you're hacking it around like a 52 handicapper by the end. The food was good, the gin was... strong and I flew through a couple of books #takemeback

Berlin, Sunday 25th September

So, getting to it then... 99 days, sleeps and wake ups until running around Berlin for hours and hours becomes very real. Despite now being a relatively experienced half marathon runner, the prospect of doubling the distance is daunting. I never thought I would run a marathon, but then I never thought I would run a half. To complete a race of that distance is still an achievement for me, of course it is, but the initial glow of completing what felt impossible has naturally subsided a little bit. I could have just kept chucking out halfs and improving 30 seconds here and there, but one of the biggest things about being able to do it at all is the motivation. 

The motivation to do something as bat shit mental as run 26.2 miles is something else entirely. Not only for the personal achievement and a bloody massive medal, but to do something in aid of the British Heart Foundation means a lot to me and some special people in my life. I've ran for the BHF in the past and raised £850 back in 2014 for my first half marathon which was a r-i-d-i-c-u-l-o-u-s amount of money. This time I have actually got a place in the official BHF 'Heart Runners' team which is pretty cool.

I'm aiming to raise £1,000 which is a lot, but so is 26.2 miles! No rush on this at all but the page is here for those who are interested. Once we get in to September, I'll start knocking on your doors and turning up at your desks with a bucket and my vuvuzela to encourage you to get on board the BQ bandwagon!

Just looking at the route makes me feel sick, but here it is for those who enjoy looking at maps.

Out of all the city's in the world, there are arguably few better to run around. I found German history and the World War's endlessly interesting so I am excited to see some of the most famous sights in modern European history. I'm more excited to finish obviously, but the Brandenburg Gate will be pretty cool.

I'm going to spend some time this week working out a training plan - I'm not having these mad run six times a week online plans. My legs will fall off and I will lose my mind. 

More likely it will be three runs a week, a steady 5/6 miler on Monday, with perhaps 10+ on Wednesday and then gradually cranking up the distance on Saturday. I feel like swimming is a good idea too to help with recovery.

The big game changer is the change in pace I'm going to have to adopt. I ran the Ramathon at 7.21 mins/mile. Keeping up that pace is impossible and stupid. I want to run a sub-four hour marathon. If I ran 9 mins/mile, I would come in at 3hrs 56. That shows how massive a drop in speed I'm looking at. I tried to run deliberately slowly the other day, and found that even 8.30 min/miles was incredibly hard. Imagine someone telling you to write really slowly. You're doing it for about two lines before you get bored, frustrated and just go back to normal. That's how running a minute slower per mile felt. 

With that said, deliberately running at 9 min pace is not the plan. 8.30's will be the plan (3hrs 43) and we'll see where we are when the distance gets above and beyond the half distance. 

   

Volume Two

Not quite sure how it's happened, but it's February.

Since the should-have-been-award-winning Project 9626 drew to a close on 27th December, lots has happened. I spent five days watching the cricket in the shadow of Table Mountain in 35'c sunshine (essentially paradise), I witnessed the greatest, most spellbinding individual innings from an Englishman in decades (if not ever), I met a seven foot lion and I bagged an empty seat next to me on the flight home.

It's been good.

January has flown by since I landed back at Heathrow on Friday the 8th... the new job started which is full of new-job-challenges but going ok, I've eaten a ton of Top Deck Cadburys chocolate (for the life of me, why don't they sell this in the UK?), read a few books and made a huge decision that effects how 2016 is going to shape up.

The original plan for the year was to move out and get a place of my own in Nottingham. I looked on the usual Rightmove, Zoopla worlds and didn't get very far. I think I suffered from having too set expectations with what I wanted. Annnnnyway, after a check up visit to the dentist last week, I decided to put on hold the whole moving out thing and instead fix my teeth. Long time fans of Project 9626 will remember the disagreement my teeth had with a cricket ball 18 months ago.

Whilst I was essentially the luckiest guy in the world not to not lose all my teeth/an eye, my teeth took a hell of a whack, knocking one out and several out of place. On the face of things, you probably wouldn't notice. But I'm very aware. So I've decided to get them sorted out! Thankfully this can be done in six months without making me look like I've got mouth full of metal. Which is nice.

The flip side of staying at home and getting nice teeth before moving out is that I have a bit more time on my hands to do it right. At this point, I know nothing about moving. I had assumed renting a flat was the best plan, but perhaps I should look at buying somewhere relatively cheap and go about improving it with a view to getting on to the ladder? Who knows! I'm going to do some readin' and some learnin' and find out what is possible. Despite knowing absolutely nothing about it, I *think* I will find it interesting.

I'm definitely going to start watching Location, Location, Location, Location at the very least.

This will be one of the things I plan to write about on Working Title 14... the fear inducing, yet quite exciting prospect of moving out.

(FYI - Working Title 14 might be a holding title, it might turn in to something else. It's all in the early stages again. I didn't want to just rinse and repeat Project 9626 with four more targets for 2016, I wanted to do something a bit more long term. I was always quite very surprised by how well Project 9626 went down, and it's a medium by which I can actually get shit done - which in the procrastination central that is my life generally, that is good.)

So things will come and go.

One thing that I wish would come and go very quickly is the terrifying prospect of 26.2 miles in Berlin.

This is going to be a massive challenge. I ran 7 miles on Saturday and it was t-o-u-g-h. Only a further 19 miles on top of that. At this point, I don't know how I'm going to be able to do it, other than wearing rollerblades and strapping myself to the back of the pace car. 

I must remember though, that I am lucky enough to be part of the British Heart Foundation's 'Heart Runners' team. A healthy dose of perspective is always welcome, and that is exactly how I am positioning this. Hopefully it'll motivate me to somehow run for 4 hours on the day, and countless more in the build up to it. I plan to raise £1,000 for the charity which will make it all very worth while indeed. 

I'm also going to eat and drink like a KING in the weeks following it, so roll bloody on September the 26th!

Another thing I'd really like to do (and writing it down means I pretty much have to do it) is the super clichéd dream of writing a book! I've been thinking about it for a while now, I've even written down some actual thoughts... and when you read books like 'The Girl on the Train' and see it hailed as the best-psychological-thriller-story-book-best-ever-ever*... well, it's difficult to think I could produce something worse.

(*the biggest crock of shit I've ever read)

So we'll see how that goes. 

And we'll see how the whole Working Title 14 shebang goes on the whole. Read it, don't read it, I don't mind. Although if you've got this far, thank you. Hopefully it'll flow in a similar vein to Project 9626 and prove to be a half decent read and I'll get some stuff done.

Adios.