My first Half Marathon completed!

The last six months of preparation came to fruition on Sunday when I ran the Royal Parks Half Marathon, my first Half Marathon!  Here are the gory details.

I completed the 13.1 mile course in 2:06:56 - 11 minutes under my target time and 50 seconds per mile quicker than last years 10k pace!  I averaged 9min 45sec per mile, though after the second mile I got it into my head that I could possibly finish in under 2 hours, which caused me to exceed my pace for most of the race.  I was feeling remarkably good for the first 10 miles, especially overtaking many of the runners in my pace group, but the last two miles were particularly difficult as I ran out of energy.  I could feel the back of my neck tingling and, deciding that it probably wasn't a good sign, slowed down a bit.  Seeing a couple of fellow runners being tended to by paramedics in the last half mile left me in no doubt that, taking it easy at the end  was the best course of action!  My legs have only just stopped aching, but strangely I somehow avoided getting any blisters on my feet, a testament perhaps to the "Twin Skin" socks I wore.

Most runners were wearing their particular charity's official race t-shirt/vest and were getting cheered by the official cheering squads.  Thus I began to feel a little left out. Of course, I only have myself to blame as Help a London Child did send me running vest.  Not being a vest kind of guy, I sent it back in exchange for a running t-shirt, only to find that it was just an ordinary cotton t-shirt.  I was determined that I would run in a technical t-shirt whilst trying to promote the cause, hence how the "runmalrun.com" t-shirt came to be.  In practice this meant that no one really knew who I was running for, although I did hear a few chants of "Run Mal, Run" and "nice lamb chops"!  Next time I will probably stick with the official running top...

I might not have had a large cheering squad, but I did have Noreen who completed "Team Run, Mal, Run", proudly wearing the other running t-shirt I had printed!  She doubled as photographer, so had her own race to run, catching me at various points around the course.  We forgot to take the proper camera to the race, so all pictures were taken on my phone, which Noreen learnt to use that morning!  There are pre race pictures as well as at 4, 7 and 10 miles here, though she didn't get a picture of me crossing the finish line - the phone went into standby as I was "sprinting" for the finish!  The official photo of me about 50 metres from finish line is here and you can watch a pretty grainy video of me crossing the line here.

Training for this run clearly helped with improving my stamina and pace, so I can only wonder how quick I could have been, had I been more disciplined in following my training schedule.  That leads me nicely to my future plans...  Whilst I have no immediate plans for any more charity runs, I will definitely continue training, trying to get those miles under 9 minutes!  I think it is pretty likely that I will do more charity runs in future and the next one will probably be a full marathon!  Watch this space is  an appropriate phrase right about now.

Last but not least, I am delighted to tell you that I have now exceeded my fundraising target!  A big thank you to everyone who has sponsored me, I couldn't have done this without you.

Race day photos

Me, in Hyde Park at about 8:30am on a Sunday. With strangely short legs?

Practising my runner's pose. Oh yes!

Me and Noreen - Team Run Mal, Run!

Shameless promotion of blog!

Time to line up for race. Pensive.

The beginning of a long wait to run...

...so more photos of me waiting!

The view that I hoped my fellow runners would see!

Patience is a virtue, so I am told.

And I'm off at last (only to stop again about 20 metres further on)!

Way hey, running at last. This is the 4 mile point near Embankment tube station.

Here I come at 7 miles.

Back in Hyde Park (7 miles again).

Shot from a grassy knoll (at 7 miles).

Still going at 10 miles.

Cheering me on via Facebook!

If you have followed a link from Facebook, then firstly thank you for taking the taking the time to check out my Half Marathon blog!

I am running the Royal Parks Half Marathon this morning and am looking to raise as much money as I can for Help a London Child.  I am hoping you can help me in doing this by making a donation to this great charity, via my JustGiving page!

If you feel that this is a worthwhile cause, please join my Facebook group.  If you would also like to "cheer me on" via Facebook, then please paste the following into your status:

"Malcolm Fewtrell is running the Royal Parks Half Marathon for Help a London Child this morning. I am cheering him on and you can too by visiting www.runmalrun.com!"

Thank you on behalf of Help a London Child for your kind generosity.

Mal

Nearly there...

This could well be the last blog post before I race tomorrow morning, so I have a lot to get through!

I am pleased to say that as I write this, I have nearly met my minimum fundraising target, being just £46 pounds shy of the £395 minimum.  There was a big surge in donations yesterday which really took me by surprise.  A massive thank you is due to everyone who either via Justgiving or offline pledges helped me bump up my total by £124 in a single day!   The target is now in sight and so I am hoping that as the remaining donations come in, we may even exceed the target - I know we can do this!

As this is my training blog, I really should update you on where I am with my training...  I completed my final pre-race training session yesterday at the gym - a mere 25 minutes of race pace running which was a nice end to a productive week at the gym/pool.  I am looking forward to getting outside and running in the fresh air again, so in some ways the Half Marathon can't come soon enough!  The shin splints haven't bothered me in the last couple of weeks, though by Monday that may have changed.  The big question is where does my training go after the Half Marathon?  I'll save answering that one for the post race blog post.

Two of my running t-shirts have now been printed with "runmalrun.com" to help me publicise this fundraising campaign on race day tomorrow.  Thank you to Time Bomb in Croydon for getting these printed so quickly.  I had my name on my t-shirt for the 10k and spectators cheered me on by my name, so I figured it would be nice to hear "run mal, run" for 13.1 miles!  I realised that if I had "runmalrun.com" on the t-shirt then I might also get a few hits to this page as well, thus increasing my fundraising potential.  Of course I had to buy the "runmalrun.com" domain so I could redirect to this blogspot page, but it is all for a good cause.  Tomorrow morning I will be looking something like this:

Oh yes, the sideburns!  My "fuzzy bear" beard has given way to what can only be described as "Rockabilly" sideburns.  They are a little oversized, but this helps to draw attention to them.  They certainly provoked a reaction in everyone I saw yesterday - from "What's with the Elvis look?" to Noreen's "I hate them!", they did the trick!  I didn't really bank on explaining the reasons for them as often as I did, but despite the lump in my throat, it helped me focus on why I have to run with all my heart tomorrow.

So now you know what I am going to look like tomorrow, you are more than welcome to come down to Hyde Park and cheer me (and thousands of other runners) on!  And if you get bored of watching us all run, there is the Brakes Food and Fitness Festival going on in the park at the same time.  There will be many things going on, including a Farmers Market, Live Music and have-a-go Sporting activities.  It looks like it is going to be a sunny day tomorrow, so will make a great day out!

The rest of today will be spent preparing for the race - getting all the race gear together, planning travel, stocking up on carbohydrates and getting some rest.  This time tomorrow it will all be over!

Fundraising update!

Race day is inching ever closer, so it is about time I gave you an update on my fundraising progress.  After all, that's why I am doing this!

My fundraising target is £395 and so far I have raised £215.  Getting even this far is already a big personal achievement for me, surpassing the total amount I needed to raise for last years 10k.  A massive thank you is due to everyone who has so far pledged or donated via my Justgiving page!

I still have more to do, namely raise another £180.  This is a big ask, but with your collective help I am hopeful that it can be achieved.  Every donation is greatly appreciated and gets me closer to reaching my overall target.  So if you haven't already done so please visit my Justgiving page or email me with your pledge at donations@runmalrun.com.  Go on, dig deep!

The beard is unleashed.

Ha ha, I have grown a beard!  The natural thing to do when in training for the Royal Parks Half Marathon, no?  Well there is some reasoning behind it...

Many people do "fun running" in costume to help draw attention to themselves and their chosen cause.  I am a pretty serious guy most of the time and the term "fun running" always seemed a bit of an oxymoron to me.  Training hard, risking injury and worrying whether you will reach your fundraising target is anything but fun!  I was convinced that approaching the Half Marathon from a serious point of view was the key to running a good time and exceeding my fundraising target.  A training schedule, blog, facebook group and email updates, all serious rational stuff.  Yet here I am six days left, fighting injury and still with a lot of fundraising to do.  Perhaps I have missed the point of fun running?

Despite my protestations that running is serious business, I do quite admire those who run whilst wearing crazy costumes as I don't feel that I could.  But I want to do something.  Inspired by the 118 adverts of a few years back, I toyed with the idea of a big old mexican style moustache, after all they were runners.  I was even ready to call the moustache "Mick" in homage to a mates Dad who sports a moustache in the style I was after.  Then the penny dropped - I should pay homage to my Dad who passed away earlier this year.

In the 31 years that I knew him, my Dad never grew a moustache or beard.  But he did always have big "Elvis" style sideburns!  What better way to remember Dad on race day than grow some oversized sideburns.  I tried growing only my sideburns, but it looked like I had just missed a bit whilst shaving.  Growing a full beard would look slightly less rubbish and I could carve a couple of big "lamb chops" out just before race day!

So the beard is just a means to an end, a small act of remembrance for Dad on race day.  The big act of remembrance is to complete the race in a good time and reach/exceed my fundraising target..

One week to go!

Wow! Six months have passed since I signed up for the Royal Parks Half Marathon and race day is nearly here...

It wont have escaped your attention that I have been somewhat quiet of late.  A recurrence of good ol' "shin splints" in the week after my last blog post, put the brakes on my training schedule (again).  During this training hiccup, I have struggled to find things to write about.  Well how about the past six weeks for a start?

Last time, I had just completed an 8 mile run and was really stepping up the training.  The shin splints came on during the next run, so I stopped the training for that week.  I could barely walk for the first few days, but after a week of rest I felt good enough to run again.  By this time I was in Ireland and I managed to pound the hard concrete pavements for two 4 mile runs, but the pain returned on the third run.  I rested for another 10 days before resuming training at the beginning of September.  I actually managed an almost complete week of training, culminating in a 9 mile run.  True to form, the pain came back so that was my last long run.

Clearly I need to address the issue of shin splints, so finally I started doing exercises to strengthen the dorsiflexor muscles - these are the muscles that pull the foot towards the shin and in many cases the source of the shin pain.   I am also back in the gym, with some gentle treadmill running and keeping up the cardio fitness on the bikes.

So where am I now and where should I be in respect of my training schedule?  The furthest I have run is 9 miles a month ago, where as I should have been up to 12 miles last week.  I was however heartened by the feeling that I could have run a few extra miles on the 9 mile run, so am confident that I will manage the 13.1 miles come race day.

I am looking forward to race day with mixed emotions, both relief and trepidation.  Relief in that the race will soon be over and all going well, I will have pushed myself further than ever before.  Trepidation in so far as I still have to reach the Help a London Child fundraising target, though with the help of all you lovely people it shouldn't be a concern.  If you haven't already done so, please do visit my Justgiving page - all donations are massively appreciated!

Race Day - 10th October 2010.  The countdown begins...

One-One Thousand, Two-One Thousand...

In an earlier post, I mentioned how I keep a steady running pace by counting the timing of the steps in my head.  This started the day before last years 10k race, when I ran for the first time with a Heart Rate Monitor.  Until that point I must have had a pretty poor judgement of pace, as it wasn't long before my Heart Rate was exceeding the upper limit of my training range.  Little wonder that I was running out of steam towards the end of relatively short runs.  I needed to slow down and figured two steps every second would be a good pace to start at, then I remembered how I used to count fairly accurate seconds as a kid.  One-one thousand, two-one thousand; one-one thousand...

Well I definitely counted a lot of steps this weekend as I completed 8 miles in a pretty respectable 1hr 22mins on Saturday!  I lapped the same couple 3 times, which was not lost on the guy who called out to me that I was "running in circles"!  However this topped off another week of missed training sessions, having only been out on Wednesday (6 miles) and Friday (5 miles).  Late nights and lack of sleep was again responsible for this less than stellar commitment to my training schedule.  If I plan to run on any given day, I MUST go to bed before 11PM at the very latest.  Despite the missed sessions, the 6 miles on Wednesday took only 58 minutes or 9min 40sec per mile - that is about 30 seconds per mile faster than my usual pace!  I wasn't able to match that pace for the rest of the week, but I am at least heading in the right direction.

Last week I talked a little about the diet aspect of my race preparations.  I am pleased to tell you that from Sunday to Friday I managed to almost completely avoid junk snacks and alcohol. The exceptions were a couple of beers at the Theatre and a slice of cake at Mums.  Cutting down on the snacking is only half of the challenge, the other being to eat healthier at main meals.  I found that planning the meals for the week really helped, filling the menu with lean meat, fish, vegetables and of course a good helping of wholegrain carbs to build my energy levels.  

Then hit the weekend.  Saturday afternoon was a friend's birthday BBQ, so in the space of a few short hours I managed to undo all the hard work of the week, consuming lots of red meat and beer!  At this point it is customary to say a big thank you to the hosts, Len & Sonia, for putting on another great BBQ.  The home-made bread rolls and home-grown tomatoes and strawberries were fantastic!  Anyway I was feeling more than a little delicate on Sunday, but I had anticipated this and planned for a rest day.  What I didn't plan for was how over indulging would conflict with my body's recovery; as I write, I ache far more than I should.

Today has thus become another rest day due to the unexpected achiness of my legs, so I  will be training Tuesday though to Thursday.  I am off to Republic of Ireland on Friday for a weeks holiday, and am taking my running gear with me!  I intend to continue training, but past experience tells me that my dietary resolve will be tested to the limit.

A milestone (or seven)

Yesterday I passed an important psychological milestone-I ran further than I ever have done before! As you may have guessed from the above title, that will be 7 miles which exceeds the previous "record" of 6.2 miles (last year's 10k). In keeping with my current pace this took 71 minutes. Now I am in uncharted territory as I ramp up the mileage; every week now holds a new milestone.

Despite the highs of the long run, I have to admit I've been quite slack over the past week. I only ran on Tuesday and only 4 miles, so tried to make up for it with another 5 miles this morning. I have learned that I am pretty adept at disrupting my sleep with a few evening beers, which gives me zero motivation to get up at 5:30am the following morning. As much as it saddens me to say this, I must try to limit my alcohol intake to weekends or special occasions.

Which leads me nicely to the subject of diet. In the week after my Dad died, I didn't eat much and lost about 3/4 Stone. I am now back to "normal" eating but I am getting a fair bit of exercise, so my body naturally demands more fuel. I have found myself snacking a lot on junk to meet the carb cravings and so have put on about half the weight I lost. I am currently a shade under 13 stone, so certainly have some weight to lose. Being leaner will mean I waste less energy propelling my bulky frame and less impact on my joints, so I should see benefits in my running ability. As an aside, I have also noticed that my mood tends to be affected by what I eat, so am going to make a real effort to eat leaner meat, more fish, more fruit and vegetables, and slower releasing carbs. This starts today with Roast Chicken, boiled/steamed vegetables and none of the usual additions.

A few years back I maintained a healthy 11 stone with diet and running. I can do it again if I apply the same self discipline...

I'm back

As some of you already know, my Dad passed away unexpectedly on 2nd May. My focus since then has understandably been family, hence the lack of updates. Thank you to everyone for the kind messages of condolence and support, it has meant a lot to me and my family.

If I am honest, the last few months have been really difficult. Travelling between Croydon and Hillingdon has been taking up a lot of time, diet has been pretty rubbish, and a near constant state of tiredness pushed training to the bottom of my list. I didn't train for over six weeks and my first run was three miles of pavement pounding. You will remember from previous posts that I was being very cautious about moving from the treadmill to the street; it is fair to say that I ached for days after that run, but I haven't been on the treadmill since.

Given the new demands on my time, I have taken up early morning running. At first I found it difficult to drag myself out of bed at 5.30 am, then go for a run, but it wakes me up like no brand of coffee I have ever tasted! I am told that with early morning training, one doesn't run as quickly as they usually would. This has been a very encouraging as I am averaging about 10min 20sec per mile, which is about the pace that I ran the 10k last year. This week I have increased the distance before breakfast to 5 miles and will be at 6 miles next week. I think I will cap it at that as it will be impractical to do mega early morning miles on weekdays - the really long runs will be on Saturdays.

That brings me almost to the end of this post and I want to end with something that has been on my mind for a while now: Life is far too short, so it is vitally important to squeeze the most out of it. That's kind of the path I was on when I signed up for this run, and Dad passing has only reinforced that belief. I do however have a tendency to procrastinate on everything, so I need your help - if you see me wavering, please tell me that I am!

So I am back. I am running to raise money for HALC and I am now doing so in memory of my Dad, Brian Fewtrell.

More of the same, but different!

In a departure from recent posts, I first present to you my training since the last update:

• Saturday - 40 mins
• Sunday - rest
• Monday - 45 mins
• Tuesday - 30 mins (just about...)
• Wednesday - rest
• 240 Sit ups & 120 push ups, though not all at once!

The weekend was a little slack - I should be doing the long runs on both days. Sunday happened to follow a rather well "lubricated" weekend that started on Thursday, so my motivation wasn't the strongest it could have been. As I adjust my diet to reflect my big increase in exercise, so I must also look at my alcohol intake. Yesterday I planned to do the same as Monday, however my body just wasn't having it, so I stopped at 30 mins. I was probably a bit too tired, but am not yet that attuned to the signals my body is giving me . I take comfort in the fact that even seasoned runners have off days and must not let it get me down.

Now the duration of the runs is increasing, I am spending more time at the gym as well as spending time getting to and from the gym. Presently this equates to a two hour chunk out of my evening. On Thursday I got talking to a colleague who considers herself a "Running Widow" - social life dictated by her partner's running schedule. Having scrutinised my own schedule, I can see that as my training intensifies, my wife could well join this club! I have therefore decided that when I move on to the street running, to try early morning running. We shall see how 5:30 am starts work out for me...

Whilst it is very easy for me to bang on about how hard and tiring exercise is, it is easy to forget why I am doing this in the first place. It goes without saying that the fundraising aspect is by far the most important aspect of this whole endeavour. In future posts I will be waxing lyrical about Help a London Child, the fantastic work they do and why sponsoring me makes you great! But for now it is with great pride that I tell you that I have received my first actual donation here. Of course you are more than welcome to donate and your collective generosity is, and will be, greatly appreciated.

As I have previously alluded to, I would like my half marathon challenge to be as interactive as possible, shy of you actually running with me on 10th October. That said, running can be a solitary activity, summer is coming and I haven't seen many of you in ages. Therefore, as soon as I hit the streets, I extend an open invite to all to go for a run with me! Whether it be a jog round the block or a long Sunday run, I want to meet up with you. If you are interested, let me know (email, facebook group or comments to this post) and we will make a date for it.

Thank you and goodnight!

Run, Swim, Wii...

Time flies when you're having fun (and trying hard to fit training around everyday life), it has been over a week since the last update! I would love to say that I have been training like a true Olympian, though the reality has been a little more sedate. I have been running twice and swimming once since last week...

Running is still limited to the treadmill until I have built up sufficient strength in my lower legs to pound the pavement. I am being cautious as last year I had a particularly painful experience with "shin splints" - a general term to describe agonising pain in the shins, which is common in runners. I plan to hit the streets in about 3 weeks, so I hope the treadmill work will be enough.

The great thing about the treadmill is it is very simple to control the pace and duration of the run. I currently am up to 40 minutes and trying to maintain an average speed of about 6 mph. At each successive gym visit I am trying to increase the run duration by 5 minutes and the speed at which I start. Once I have past the hour mark (and am able to repeat it!), I will shift the focus on to distance and increasing my pace. That should put me in good shape for road running and following the proper training schedule!

In other news, I have set up a Facebook group dedicated to me running the half marathon. This is good as it allows me to keep you all up to date a little bit easier. Please do take a look here, join if you like and help me make it to the start line on 10th October.

Finally, you may have noticed in the "About me" section to your right, I listed some of my vital statistics, to try and give you an idea of where I am starting from. Of course, height and weight only tell part of the story, and in metric really don't tell anyone much at all! So here I am in common sense Imperial units:

Height- 5'10"
Weight - 13 Stone, 3 Pounds
Measurements - 40"-38"-36"

Whilst the chest-waist-hips measurements indicate that I should resemble Jonny Bravo, the sad reality is a bit more muffin top (no that is not me in the photo).

Oh I nearly forgot:

Wii Fit age - 56 years old!!!

In at the deep end?

Today I have been thinking some more about what I want to do with this training diary. So I present to you: "My Thoughts"!

It goes without saying that this diary needs to help me achieve my minimum fundraising target, but how? Thinking back to how I struggled to raise just £200 for the London 10k last year, and what I did to promote my cause, gives me some ideas as to what I can do differently this time around:

• Don't be modest about what I am trying to achieve - I am raising money for charity after all.
• Keep more people, better informed about what I am doing and why. A couple of emails is far too low key, and in this day and age is just not good enough.
  
• Try and get everyone involved in the cause, so that come race day, we are running for charity.

Aside from my musings about how best to achieve my goals, I need to keep you updated with how my training is going. I will therefore update you with my training highs and lows along the way.

So to today's exercise. Anticipating that I would be aching today, I decided to go swimming (controlled drowning!) for 35 minutes. And just so I could write about it, 50 sit ups and 20 press ups! If this diary can motivate me, then that is a welcome but unexpected side effect. Total walking today was about 2 miles. Tomorrow I will rest a little I think!

Start as you mean to go on.

I signed up for the Half Marathon on Saturday evening and Sunday was spent doing DIY, so Monday was when I really started to think about the challenge I have before me. If the physical training isn’t enough, then I also have the small matter of reaching my minimum fundraising target at the very least and documenting it all through my training diary. I was starting to get a little uptight, so what better remedy than to go for a run!

Contrary to my training schedule, Monday was my first training day. Seeing as I hadn’t been for a run since December and not wanting to risk injury, I decided that I would pound the treadmill for 30 minutes. A trip to the local leisure centre was clearly in order then. I can now justify that monthly subscription that had been idle for months!

Not wanting to do things by halves, I decided to go prepared and take my own Heart Rate Monitor (HRM). For those of you not familiar with HRM’s, they allow you to monitor how hard you are exerting yourself in training or on race day itself. This is important as you don’t want to overdo it at the start only to burn out half way through. Having proved the usefulness of my HRM in the 10k last year, I won’t go running without it these days.

I have never been a fan of using the HRM’s on the actual treadmills – holding onto a rigid bar whilst running may be useful for a successful Supermarket Sweep, but it doesn’t fulfil my requirements. Little did I realise that the treadmill would pick up signal from my HRM, so I didn’t even have to look at my watch. Neither did the people either side of me, as my vital signs were displaying on their treadmills
too! Amusing as it was for me, it wasn’t a total disaster for them as gripping the sensor pads allowed them to override me and measure their own heart rates.

Half an hour of treadmill was duly completed, surprisingly easier than I expected - perhaps the three miles I walk daily to and from work has improved my fitness. Time was getting on and I was still full of energy, so I figured that as I was already kitted up, I would run home. That would be another 15 minutes (1.2 miles) and caution to the wind; so much for taking it easy. It always amazes me how much energy the pavement drains, as to run at the same pace (yes I count in my head…) sent my heart rate well above where it was in the gym. To top off my training for the day, 40 sit ups and 20 press ups when I got home reminded me that I have let myself go somewhat in the last six months. But this is my first day, so lets see how I feel tomorrow.

Ready, Steady, Go!

Welcome to the first post in my Half Marathon training diary! I hope to entertain you over the next six months you with my tales of growing (shrinking?) from a Couch Potato to an Athlete. In return, I hope that you will be able to support and encourage me when I need a boost.

So yes, I will be running the Royal Parks London Half Marathon on Sunday 10th October 2010 for Help a London Child. This will be my second charity run, the first being the London 10k last May. I thought my running days were long forgot until a friend offered to sponsor me in return for running 13.1 miles for charity. I guess everyone needs something to motivate them, so on Saturday I took the plunge and entered the race. I have six months to get up to race pace.

As I always like to state the obvious, a charity run generally consists of two things; fund raising and running. My 10k experience tells me that I must do better in both respects. So if you haven't already, please visit my JustGiving page here, and if you are feeling generous, feel free to sponsor me. Secondly, I need to get training properly, so will be following a training schedule which broadly resembles this. As I have six months and it is a three month schedule, I hope to be at the intermediate level by race day. And like any aspiring athlete, I will also have to consider a healthy diet!

So I ran tonight for the first time since December, but that is another post altogether...