A Cut Above (and below, and pretty much everywhere else)

A new year is almost upon us, and soon it will be roughly three-and-a-half months until the marathon.

In the new year I will have to start emailing (read: begging) people for sponsorship. I have a feeling that raising the sponsorship money might be more difficult the second time round - there is this thing called "donor fatigue" - I did a fantastic job in the 2011 marathon raising over £3500, but it is not unusual to find a second attempt at the marathon, particularly without a gap after the first, a lot harder to raise sponsorship. Doing the marathon the first time, people were more than willing to donate - me taking part in some form of exercise was something of a novelty and as a result the money came flowing in. This time round, there is no novelty, and it is only a year after the first marathon, although the fact that I have completed one marathon should give potential donors lots of confidence in me being able to complete a second marathon. It's also down to the effects of the recession on fundraising and people are sealing up their wallets, quite understandably. Whatever happens, I am sure that I will raise the necessary funds. In fact, my ambition is to raise more money than in 2011's marathon. It's a lofty ambition but I am sure that it can be done.

My training is going well. The days are getting colder, the weather is getting worse and the nights are coming in earlier but I have still managed to get my fair share of training in. I have come back to my hometown in Essex over the Christmas holidays to spend time with my family and in my suitcase I brought with me my running gear. Marathon training doesn't take a holiday, I'm afraid. In fact, I spent Christmas Eve and Christmas Day doing a few miles on the treadmill in the gym so hopefully nobody can question my determination!

Yesterday I did some more training, not on the treadmill but on the streets again. Admittedly it was not one of the better training sessions I've had. In fact, it probably ranks among the worst. I've run in the pouring rain, I've been chased by dogs, nearly been hit by cars, but through all that, I was at least able to say that I managed to stay on my feet. Yesterday, I suffered the ignominy of falling over while on a run. I'm deeply embarrassed. It's all rather humiliating.

I was running through Chigwell and in an effort to avoid people walking on the pavement ahead, I moved to run alongside them but tripped over something and fell to the ground. I suffered cuts to my left wrist, right hand, some of my fingers, waist, elbows and my left knee. My left knee also has a particularly nasty bruise. I quickly picked myself up again and continued running for another six miles, bleeding and in slight pain. It would probably have been a better idea to go straight home after that fall but it's going to take more than a few cuts and bruises to make me give up once I've got going. It was mainly my pride that was hurt. The cuts and bruises actually hurt more when I'd got home again and put witch hazel on them and took a shower. I have a few plasters now on my various places and I've learned now to be a bit more careful in future when running. I guess you have to suffer for your art, if marathon running can be described as an art form.

Here I Go Again

Hello there.

It has been nearly seven months since I last put pen to paper (or fingers to keyboard, anyway) but to be fair, I thought I would wait until I actually had something remotely interesting to write about. Perhaps I waited too long because I have rather a lot to mention.

Firstly, I am no longer living in leafy Woodford, Essex. I now find myself in the exotic climes of the North of Manchester as I got offered a better job in Salford and I decided to take the opportunity to move on to pastures new and hopefully greener. So far, so great. I am really enjoying my new role. I'm being constantly challenged. I learn something new often. I develop my skills as I go along. I develop more responsibility and confidence as a result. My manager sets me goals periodically. The team I work with are an exceptionally lovely bunch. Basically I feel valued, appreciated and respected and I feel like I am going somewhere rather than merely treading water and going through the motions as I was starting to feel in my previous department.
I am also enjoying my new life and independence up here, being able to do what I want, whenever I want, wherever I want, and to whomever I want. I miss my family and friends who are all back down in London, but I sure as Hell don't miss London. It's overcrowded, overrated, nobody has time for anybody, everybody's in a rush. Manchester, for all its perceived flaws is a really nice city to live in. The locals are friendly, the pace of life is a bit slower, so you start to appreciate some of the finer things in life, and the scenery isn't bad either.

The last bit there, I can say with confidence as I've been going around Manchester, getting around my local area and slightly further afield. Much of this, I've been doing on foot. Yes, folks, I'm still running. I find time to go running at least one weekday each week, during my lunch break at work, and it allows me to take in a quite scenic view of the Salford Quays as well as letting off a bit of stress from work. It gives me something to talk about with my colleagues, and people that I don't personally know recognise me every time they see me going for a run. I'm basically the dark-haired, breathless, sweat-stained idiot running around in circles, wearing the same blue running shirt and turning a funny shade of crimson through overexerting myself. I also find the time to do a longer run at the weekend in Prestwich, where I'm currently living, and that's given me the ideal opportunity to explore the streets in and around my local area and really familiarise myself with the geography of my town. Just last weekend, I ran from my flat in Prestwich, down the A56 (better known as the Bury New Road - it's a very long road that, as the name suggests, runs from Bury to Manchester), into Manchester city centre. Then I turned back and ran all the way back to Prestwich, and ran further North down the other end of the Bury New Road to Bury. Then having reached Bury town centre, I ran back home to Prestwich again down the Bury New Road. Eighteen miles in all. I don't know about Bury New Road, but it's certainly a Very Long Road. I found that run as enjoyable as I found it exhausting.

And why, I hear you ask, am I running eighteen miles again? Have I taken leave of my senses? Am I trying to save money by travelling on foot instead of by car? The real answer is that I have applied for a place in the 2012 London Marathon and have been awarded one with the charity of my choice. It's a different charity from 2011 but prosaically speaking it is actually the same charity but with a different name. The charity formerly known as the RNID (Royal National Institute for the Deaf) is now currently known as Action on Hearing Loss. So, to all intents and purposes, I have effectively resumed my training.

Why am I going through this all over again? I think Einstein, assuming that the quote has been correctly attributed to him, defined insanity as "doing the same thing over and over again expecting to get different results." I'm expecting the same result, insofar as I'd like to complete the marathon again, but hoping for a different result inasmuch as I ran the 2011 Marathon in 4hrs 47 minutes and raised over £3500 and now I'd like to do even better than that this time round.
I've done the marathon once, what more do I need to prove? I guess what I'm trying to say is that I don't have anything else I need to prove, but now that I've done the marathon, the next logical step is to attempt it again, and complete it in a faster time than in the previous year, and raise more money in the process. So that is my goal. The faster time, I can achieve by putting in all the training and effort, but as for raising the money, I will need help from my friends, sponsors and well-wishers.

Doing the 2011 London Marathon was a huge learning curve for me, a very steep learning curve, steeper even than that hill down Roding Lane North that helped me build up my stamina when it came to uphill running. Anyway, where was I? Oh yes. I learned so much when I was training for the 2011 marathon. The experience proved invaluable, as did the advice that I received from other runners, the things that I taught myself, and the mistakes that I made. I can train for the 2012 London Marathon knowing everything that I learned the hard way from training for the 2011 London Marathon, and hopefully the end result will be as successful (as far as completing the marathon is concerned, but more successful in that I complete it with a much improved finishing time and raise even more money for a worthy cause).

The London Marathon

Hi everybody.

I completed the London Marathon in 4 hours, 47 minutes and 47 seconds. I am very pleased with this time because I had only recently just come back from injury, having done very little training in the period of 16^th March-16^th April and almost literally jumped straight into the marathon. Obviously I’m slightly disappointed that the month’s absence from training owing to my injury meant that I was not fully fit and therefore my finishing time was not as quick as I would have liked it to be, but I think that it is amazing to have finished the race with that time, despite everything that had happened. Face it, I could have been a lot slower. And at any rate, this surely gives me a wonderful incentive to apply for next year’s London Marathon so that I can do better.

So, here’s how the day began.

I woke up at 5.30 on Sunday 17^th April after having gone to sleep at 10pm the night before. I needed all the rest I can get before what was going to be a very gruelling day. I went downstairs and had a bowl of Kellogg’s Start and a banana. Bananas have potassium in them and they give you lots of energy. They’re also incredibly easy to use. Just peel and eat. Easy.

At 7.15, I met my uncle at Woodford station who is also running the marathon. While this was my first marathon, for him this was his 4^th, which makes him a veteran when it comes to marathons. Even more of a veteran is his uncle, who ran his 20^th marathon and, at the age of 86 was the oldest runner in the race!

Together, my uncle and I went on the Central Line to Stratford and then changed to the Docklands Light Railway, where we took a (light) train to Greenwich. We arrive at Greenwich Park at about 8.30, where I separated from my uncle, who is starting at a different point. I met up with other runners from the RNID and we introduced ourselves to each other. I then spent the next hour or so doing my various stretches and queuing impatiently for the toilets to relieve myself of any last-minute nerves. Once again, the reality of what was about to do started to hit me. I tied my timing chip to my shoe. The device is important because it will time precisely how long it takes me to run the route from the start line to the finish line as soon as I cross both – this is as opposed to when the starting gun is fired, because there can be a time delay between the gun being fired and me crossing the line, which would distort my finish time and make it appear as if I was running for longer than I had been.

And they’re off! At 9.45, the marathon officially begins. But due to the sheer number of people taking part, it’s another 20 minutes before I actually cross the start line and begin running. The race started off well. Stomping the streets of Blackheath, then moving into Charlton. At the two-mile point, I saw a lady that I work with. A few of my colleagues, family and friends had told me in advance where they would be around the route, and this really helped my confidence, knowing that soon I would be approaching yet another familiar face.

We get to mile 5 now. It’s a pretty good run so far. Although I have crossed the 5 mile marker, my watch tells me that I have in fact run 5.3 miles. This is because I have zig-zagged across the roads, trying to circumnavigate the bodies of those running slower than me. I don’t feel breathless yet or feel the need to stop, but I am aware that my fitness might be lacking slightly due to having to take a month out of training because of my foot injury. I can take comfort in the fact that my foot is causing me absolutely no problems at all on the day.

At around the 7-mile mark, I saw my uncle. I recognised the back of his running shirt and the back of his head. He gave me encouragement as I overtook him.

Getting to mile 10 caused me no problems whatsoever. Everything was still going very smoothly. I felt no pain at this stage. The spectators seem to get noisier by the minute. It works though as their cheers are really spurring me on.

By the time I got to mile 12, I was starting to flag a little bit. The weather is quite a lot hotter than I had expected it to be. I was informed by the weather forecast that the temperature would be 14°C. I don’t know what the temperature was, but it was much hotter than 14°C. I drink plenty of water to keep me hydrated, but I am starting to feel some discomfort. As I am slowing down, I see that I am approaching Tower Bridge and such an amazing landmark in sight only serves to speed me up again. A patriotic Brit as ever.

At the halfway point, I find that I have clocked up 13 miles in 2 hours and 4 minutes. I knew that if I could complete the latter half of the marathon with the same pace, I should finish with a very good time. I also knew that realistically, I was going to get progressively slower as fatigue set in. So 4 hours and 8 minutes became less practical and 4 hours 15 minutes seemed more reasonable. But as time went on, even that seemed difficult to achieve, what with the searing heat and not being on top form. 4 hours 30 minutes became the new target. Then I saw the crowds cheering me on and I realised that I didn’t need to get bogged down with timings and such like – it would be an incredible honour and achievement to just finish the race, no matter how fast or slow.

Having now moved North of the River Thames, I am running through the Docklands. At around mile 17, I see my family, including my dad and my brother, just coming out of Mudchute station on the DLR. If had been running any faster, they would have missed me completely!

As we get to mile 20, things start to get very difficult. It becomes harder to run long distances without needing to walk for a bit. My legs seemingly turn to stone. I start to get overtaken by people wearing ridiculous costumes. I carry on regardless. Ultimately I have to start walking more and more, which is dispiriting but I felt no shame in doing that. Virtually every other participant in the race had to walk at some point, I would guarantee it. Those last five or six miles were sheer torture at times, and when I think back to it, it seems to have gone by so quickly, but my recollection of it at the time was that this last stretch took ages to get through.

At mile 24 or 25, I see my family on the Embankment and that spurs me on again. I stop for a photograph or two, as it would not have done any harm to savour the moment. I then turned into Westminster and the Mall for my sprint finish. The last mile or so along the Embankment and Westminster seemed horribly longer than I had previously thought it would be. It just kept going on and on and on.

Somehow, I cross the finish line with a time of 4hrs 47mins and 47secs which, as I said, I’m very happy with. I smell of sweat, my face and back are sunburned, I have blisters on several of my toes and I can barely move my legs but I feel an amazing sense of achievement. Job done.

There are two sides to the marathon. One is the physical side, the running part. The other is the fundraising part, and I can say at this stage that I have more than exceeded my £2000 target. As things stand, we are on more than £2800, and £3000 is looking likely. I would never have imagined it in a million years.

So, what next?

I’m conflicted.

My heart says "never again!" but my brain says "come on, next year we can beat this year’s time!"

Charity Case

It is tomorrow.

The London Marathon has fast approached with the momentum of a runaway locomotive. I say, those eight months of training went by quickly, didn’t they? Well, here we are now. I have almost met my £2000 target for the charity of my choice.

Things are really building up. Although my fitness is not at its best owing to a lack of training in the wake of my injury, I’ve come a long way since the days where I couldn’t run two or three miles without being hopelessly out of breath. My runs have been getting longer and longer. It’s getting rather odd when you now consider a 6-mile run to be a “short run.” In actual fact, 6 miles is a very long distance, but compared to my longer weekend runs of 14-20 miles, 6 miles is very short!

Aside from all the training I’ve done solo in my local area, I’ve taken part in a 10km race in Southend, and a half-marathon in Roding Valley. Entering the races has without a doubt helped me acclimatise to the conditions of a typical race, so that it won’t seem all too alien to me when I run the London Marathon. At the same time, doing those races sometimes brings out the worst in me. There’s a bit of a competitive spirit inside of me and occasionally my competitive nature gets the better of me and I feel compelled to run faster than I really ought to. I tell myself “it’s not a race, just go at your own pace. You’re just practising for the marathon.” Then I realise, “hey, this IS a race! Show these other runners what you’re made of!” And I then get carried away. So I will have to be careful not to let myself be influenced or intimidated by other runners who speed past me with apparent ease. Especially those in the silly costumes. I will hopefully take my own advice and go at my own pace. I will relax and enjoy the marathon. There really is little point in doing it if it is going to be a long, arduous and torturous slog. At the same time, I won’t take the whole thing too lightly. I’ve pledged to raise a large sum of money for a deserving cause and I am taking this responsibility seriously. This is highly unusual for me, since I tend not to take anything seriously in life.

Today I shall just relax and conserve my energy for tomorrow. Lots of carbohydrate will be eaten today, in the form of pasta, which just happens to be my favourite food. I do love Italian food. I've also been drinking plenty of water to keep me hydrated over today and tomorrow, and I will keep drinking water regularly tomorrow. Not too much water though - wouldn't want to get hyponotraemia. Early night for me tonight as well. I'm going to meet my uncle Mark at a nearby Underground station tomorrow morning at 7.15, so I will probably wake myself up at 5.30 or 6am, which will give me enough time to eat some breakfast, get everything out of my system, and prepare myself mentally and then get on the train nice and early.
Upon arrival in Greenwich, we'll both continue our preparations and steel ourselves up for the big race. Unfortunately we're not going to be together at the start as we have been allocated different starting places. My uncle was one of the lucky ones who got a place in the marathon through the ballot, whereas I got my place via a charity. We run at different speeds though, so even if we had been together at the start, it wouldn't be for very long.
Not only my uncle, but my uncle's uncle is also running in tomorrow's marathon. He also happens to be the oldest participant in this year's race, and this, at the sprightly age of 86, is his 20th marathon. He's a legend and a real inspiration and he is one of the reasons why I'm running in the marathon. After all, if he can do it, then surely anybody else can. It proves that age is no barrier, as he started running in his 60s.

Last thing before I run the marathon tomorrow - thank you to everybody who has sponsored me and/or given me their best wishes. It is all very much appreciated. If you have not sponsored me yet, and would like to, you can do so online at: http://uk.virginmoneygiving.com/martinpampel

This is Martin Pampel, runner 46411, signing off. At least until tomorrow anyway. I will update again on the marathon after I've finished the marathon, assuming that 1) I finish it, and 2) I have regained the strength to get up the stairs of my house and use a computer.

Well, wish me luck. I'm going to bloody well need it!

Indecent Expo-sure

Hooray! At long last, it looks like my foot is better. What took it so long? The important thing is that it is better, although it's probably too late now to get in any extra pre-marathon training as I'm unlikely to benefit from any this close to the race.

I visited the physiotherapist again the other day. It was a different lady this time but the treatment was the same. More stretches, more gentle massaging, more rubbing of lubricating jelly on my leg with the ultrasound. Apparently it’s not quite like the ultrasound given to pregnant mothers as I asked the physiotherapist, so this time I definitely didn’t ask if I was getting a boy or a girl.

Earlier today, I visited the London Marathon Expo. It's a huge exhibition where exhibitors exhibit their products and services in relation to the London Marathon, from sports drinks to sportswear to watches and all sorts of crazy gizmos. It is being held at the ExCeL Centre, by Custom House station on the Docklands Light Railway. Just done some research, and apparently, ExCeL stands for Exhibition Centre, London. You heard it here first. The Expo is open for four days between Wednesday and Saturday, but today was the only day in which I was actually free to visit. There, I officially register in the race and collect my chip and my running number and kit bag, all in preparation for the big day on Sunday.
The building was huge. Absolutely enormous. The exhibition itself was also enormous. So many stands, so many products being sold. It was all rather overwhelming.

The first thing I did when arriving was get my name printed on my running vest so that people can see my name as I run along and call out my name, either to motivate or heckle me. It now has my name on it, in big, bold, black lettering, on both the front and the back and I’ll be wearing it on Sunday with pride. Pride and nervousness. And plenty of sweat.

I helped myself to lots of freebies – mainly energy bars and energy sweets, bits of cake and so on. So much so, I didn’t need to make myself any dinner when I got home at 7.30pm because I was full up!

I learned plenty at the exhibition. From the man at the Lucozade stand, you cannot really expect to complete a marathon on water alone. You need carbohydrate and sugar to keep you going. He would say that, though. He’s trying to sell a product. I suppose he has a point though. I’ve run 21 miles just on water and although I did manage to keep myself going, I’m not sure I could have managed 26. By the time I finished that 21-mile run, I was almost delirious.
So that’s one thing learned – take energy foods/drink with me, whether in the form of sweets or gel or whatever works. I was warned by my uncle to be careful with some of these, and never try anything during the marathon that you haven’t already tried in training. Especially when it comes to energy drinks and gels. There is this phenomenon known as the “runner’s tummy” or “runner’s trots.” All that running has an effect on the abdomen, making it more likely that you’ll need to use the toilet. If you’re running for two, three four, five, six, seven, et cetera hours continuously, that can have quite an effect, and consuming something that you are not used to can exacerbate it. My uncle also advised bringing toilet paper with me “in case you need the toilet and there’s no toilet paper there.” So after my uncle’s warning, I am now paranoid that if I’m not careful, I will end up shitting myself in front of a crowd and TV audience of millions.

Let's Get Physio

Visited the physiotherapist this morning to see if there was anything that she could do for me, in the final stretch leading up to the marathon. I have been prodded, poked, probed, twisted, bent double and been subjected to a barrage of questions. Upon inspection, there doesn’t seem to be any real damage and the foot itself is fine. The physiotherapist recommended a few stretches that I shall do to help me. Then she rubbed some lubricating jelly-like substance onto my lower leg and gave me an ultrasound. I was half-tempted to ask if I was going to have a boy or a girl. Following that, she stuck some patches onto my leg and plugged electrodes to them and sent an electric current through me for about fifteen minutes. Overall, I think it helped, and I am going back there on Tuesday evening. I think I’m going to be all right now.

I turned up at my secondary school on Wednesday. I attended that school between the years of 1995 and 2002, so it had been a fair while since I was last on the premises! Some of the pupils there were taking part in a sponsored run in the streets surrounding the school, all to benefit my marathon fundraising. The whole thing had been carefully planned and coordinated as if it were a military operation. I was asked to come along in order to give the proceedings a bit more authenticity. It is, after all, better for the pupils doing the running to see who they are doing it for. By meeting them and explaining why I was running the marathon for the RNID, it gave them a sense of perspective. I think. I hope. It was a lovely day for a run, and the kids really got into the spirit of things, even the ones, who I was told weren’t particularly known for making much movement!

At the end of an hour’s running (or walking as some chose to do), I awarded a prize to the person that had run the most laps of the school perimeter (seven). I also awarded a prize to the best costume – the decision was easy. It was a blonde lad who had decided to put on a nice pink bra. I figured that anybody who had the sheer gall to run around the local streets sporting a bright pink brassiere deserves a prize for his efforts.

The local paper never did turn up. I guess they didn’t consider the story remotely newsworthy. A shame really. It kind of belittled the sterling effort put in by the kids who really did work hard. I was not expecting much money to be raised from the afternoon, but I was told that between everybody, an astonishing £250-£300 was raised. Fantastic, really, and very much appreciated.

So you’re thinking: “enough about the bloody children and their running. We want to know about you!” OK. Since my last post, I’ve done a bit more running and a bit more resting, and I think it’s fair to say that my foot is very nearly healed. There’s no question of me pulling out of the marathon. Definitely not. Most certainly not. I will cross that finish line by any means necessary, fair or unfair. Perhaps this injury was a blessing in disguise. Before I became injured, I was beginning to become complacent, and rather getting bored of the long runs every weekend. Now this has made me more determined than ever. It’s fuelled a great anger and burning desire to complete the race. As I said in one of my first posts, this is going to be my first marathon and as such, I don’t have a finishing time in mind. I just want to complete the bloody thing. As my running technique improved, I did start to get a finishing time in my head – but that can wait for another year. This is my first marathon and I don’t have a time to beat; that can come next year when I attempt to beat whatever my time will be this year.

Running Wounds All Heels

Apologies for the sporadic updates. I've spent the last week or so not training, allowing my foot to get better. It is in fact feeling much better now as I went out for a short run earlier and managed to run for three miles. I did not intend to cover a further distance as I didn't want to overdo it just as soon as I'd recovered. I could still feel my foot playing up a little, but it was not painful in the least so I think it's more or less better. I'm thinking that if I can run three miles on it now, I should certainly be able to run 26 miles on it in two weeks' time.
That reminds me. The marathon is now but a mere fortnight away. What worries me now is not just my foot but my fitness. Having not run for over a week until today, I could tell that I was clearly not as fit as I was prior to hurting my foot. Which is to be expected really. So I shall have to build up my fitness a bit more over the next two weeks but without putting any additional pressure on my foot.

The fundraising is going very well now. I've raised more than half of my £2000 target. I'm nearly 70% of the way there. Technically speaking, I am actually 68.6% of the way there. Many of the recent donors have been people that I work with and people from the religious community. I'm grateful for whatever money I can get from whoever wants to donate, and the address is http://uk.virginmoneygiving.com/martinpampel for whoever wants to make a donation.

I will be visiting my old secondary school later this week because some of the pupils there are doing some fundraising of their own to help me out, thanks to one of the teachers at the school who I am still in touch with now. I think the kids are doing a sponsored run around the school perimeter, which should be interesting. There might be local press in attendance. Hope I don't get interviewed as I will have to think very carefully about what I say because I'm more gaffe-prone than Prince Philip and Boris Johnson combined.

Anyway, looking forward to the marathon now. I think I have a very good chance of crossing that finish line, however long it takes me. All I can do is my best.

Trouble A-foot

The recovery from my foot injury is going slowly but surely. I was able to run for a mile and a half last night, though the foot still needs more rest. At times it felt like I was dragging my bad foot behind me like a deadweight. Obviously I need more time for the foot to heal, but I am quietly hopeful that it will improve and I will be able do some more training before the marathon takes place. The next time I train, I will try and up the distance to two miles, then five miles after that, and then on to ten miles and hopefully fifteen or twenty, and I should be back on form again.

I am a bit conflicted though. I have got to let this foot recover, but I can't go too long without training this close to the main event, even though you are supposed to taper down the training at this stage. I'm doing everything possible to expedite my recovery. I am regularly pressing ice packs against my foot, running the foot under a scalding hot shower and using tonnes and tonnes of Deep Heat (confidentially, that stuff really stinks). I don't know if any of the above is actually making a difference but I'll try anything to accelerate my recovery. Painkillers, alternative medicine, praying to Him Upstairs, whatever works.
Anybody got any suggestions?
Anybody?
Anyone?
God?

Injury Time

My fears have been confirmed and I am down, injured.

I went to the hospital on Wednesday afternoon, to the Accident and Emergency department while it was quiet at work (yes, I got permission from my manager!). Surprisingly I only had to wait for about half an hour to be seen. Say what you like about the NHS. It’s a mess but the staff, doctors, nurses, porters, et cetera, do a creditable job under extremely difficult circumstances.

I was called in by the doctor. I had rather a lot of difficulty trying to understand what he was saying. He had a very strong accent. I am not sure what accent he spoke in. It was probably Eastern European but for all I know, it could have been South African. You know, I can’t even tell a Scots accent from an Irish one.

To cut a long story short, the doctor told me that I had tendonitis. Or tendinitis. I’ve seen both spellings. I’m not sure which is correct. It refers to the tendon, so surely tendonitis should be the spelling to employ. The doctor said that I should rest my foot, carry on walking as normal, and it should be healed in a week or two. Or at least, that is what I think I heard him say.

As things stand, I can feel my foot slowly getting better, in that it’s nowhere near as painful to walk and I’m no longer walking ‘funny.’ I hope the recovery is a speedy one, but I will have to take care not to jump back into the running too soon, otherwise I risk aggravating the situation. My cousin made the valid point that perhaps the injury has come at the right time: with a month to go until the marathon, I should be winding down the training. You are supposed to cut down on your training a few weeks before the marathon, and as I have already done the bulk of my training, my situation is perhaps not too dire.

The whole thing has shaken me and affected my confidence a little. It has made me realise that I am not apparently indestructible after all and that I have to watch myself a bit more. I’ve subsequently had to pull out of the Brentwood half-marathon that I was planning to run, which is disappointing (that’s twenty quid I’ll never get back!) but I’m hopeful and positive that all will be well come the marathon itself in a month’s time. I’ve trained too hard for too long to see it all come to nothing. I will run that marathon and cross the finish line, come hell or (more relevantly, given recent circumstances in the Far East) high water.

Scrambled Aches

It looks like my 'off day' the other day was just that, an 'off day.' A mere, trivial, inconsequential little blip. From an off day to a day off, yesterday I was on leave from work, trying to use up my remaining annual leave before the end of the financial year.

I spent most of yesterday in the gym. This was the Esporta in Repton Park, or as I prefer to call it "the gym and health centre for people with more money than sense." I'm not a fan of gymnasia(?? Gymnasiums??) in general, probably due to my own little insecurities meaning that inevitably I'm going to be comparing myself unfavourably to other, fitter members of the gym, despite the fact that I think I am relatively fit and have a nice body as it currently is. I dislike this gym in particular because the membership fees are tantamount to extortion and can't fathom for the life of me why anybody would be willing to pay such silly money for a yearly membership. (Fortunately I had a free day pass so I took advantage of it and didn't have to pay a single penny.) Granted, it is a very nice looking gym, and the swimming pool is lovely. In fact, I think it is because of that lovely swimming pool that the prices are so steep. Perhaps there's nothing inherently wrong with the gym and I just have an irrational loathing of gyms.

Anyway, back on topic, aside from doing some bicep curls and shoulder presses, I ran on the treadmill for an hour, and although the silly treadmill only measured my distance in kilometres, I think that I must have run for about seven miles, give or take. Hopefully I am back on form. Despite the air conditioning in the room, I was completely drenched in my own sweat by the end of my little stint on the treadmill. Never, in all my months of running have I managed to sweat so profusely. You could have wrung entire buckets full of water out of my sweaty shirt and bottled the stuff up as L'eau de Martin. I am actually rather impressed that I ran on the treadmill for an hour since it is extraordinarily odd for me to be able to run on the same spot for such a long time. Normally I dislike treadmills because you are essentially running on the same spot for ages, and despite listening to music or looking at the TV screens in front of you, it is still a very boring activity, just running and not actually going anywhere. Maybe I misjudged the humble treadmill and perhaps I will use one more often in the future, instead of taking to the streets all the time.

I also did a short run this evening as part of my regular training (four miles). At the end of the run, I felt a dull pain in my right foot. Actually, it wasn't quite the foot. It wasn't the ankle either. It was somewhere in the lower leg, approaching the foot, but isn't the foot or the ankle. I'm not a specialist in podiatry so I have no idea what the problem is but it is giving me cause for concern and I do hope it heals up soon, preferably before this half-marathon on Sunday. To be frank, I'm quite surprised that it has taken me this long to injure myself again. I thought it would happen much sooner. I am crossing my fingers, toes, and any other body part that can reasonably be crossed, in the hope that everything will soon be all right. So for now, plenty of rest for this foot of mine.

I won't get all melodramatic about my foot ("Woe is me!" "Why do bad things always happen to me?" et cetera, et cetera) because, to put things in perspective, thousands of people have been killed in an earthquake and tsunami in Japan, so to complain about my foot with all this tragedy going on seems downright petulant and perverse at best.

Decline and Fool

I feel a bit disappointed with myself. Yesterday I ran “only” 15 miles. I had wanted to do more. I would have been happy with 18 miles or 20 miles but I could only manage 15. I hadn’t been feeling right all day as it happens, but I’m still disappointed with myself. Maybe it was because I hadn’t drank one of those energy sports drinks or eaten a banana beforehand but I just did not have the energy to go further than 15 miles. Also, my foot started to hurt a bit at some point during the run. I don’t really know what it was, but it felt like the life and energy had been sucked right out of me. I wanted to keep on running, maybe do another three miles and make it to 18 miles, but forgive me readers, I just couldn’t take any more.

I am getting a bit worried though. Maybe I am mentally or physically “taking my foot off the gas” and getting complacent. It seems a bit typical with me. I usually suffer some sort of mental stumbling block with the winning post in sight. Events somehow conspire to deny me what is seemingly within reach. Is this just a little setback, an ‘off day,’ a rare lapse in my otherwise impressive training, or is this the start of a decline?

On the other hand, perhaps I should feel proud of myself that despite clearly having an ‘off day,’ I still managed to run 15 miles.

A Run For Your Money

The training for the London Marathon continues unabated. On Sunday 20th March, I shall be taking part in another half-marathon, this time in Brentwood, Essex. As with the half-marathon I’ve just completed, this will no doubt help me adapt to race conditions and get used to running alongside other runners, male and female, fast and slow, etcetera, etcetera.

I have, up to now, managed to run a staggering 21 miles in a single training session. In theory, I could stand to run more miles, but I think this would be bordering on the excessive, not to mention the insane. It takes me about three hours (and a bit) to get to 20 miles when I’m at the top of my game, so running any longer than this in a single go is really rather unnecessary, and crucially, not recommended by the experts.

Part of me wants to try and train for the whole 26 miles beforehand, just to prove that I can actually run the distance of the marathon, but perhaps this would be a tad foolish. If I can run for 20 miles, I should be able to run another 6 on top of that. I don’t quite know how exactly. I expect the adrenaline will be keeping me going those last few miles. That and the encouragement of the spectators in the street. I am quietly confident that I will manage it.

So you see, the training is going very well indeed. As far as the fundraising is concerned, that’s going quite well as well. I have raised very nearly £1000 of my target of £2000, so I am almost halfway there. I knew that running for 26 miles would be an extraordinarily challenging task, but it seems that equally as challenging is the fundraising. I’m extremely grateful for the sponsorship that I have received so far and I am quietly confident (again!) that more donations will trickle in as the day of the marathon approaches.

Part of me feels a little guilty in pressurising and pestering people to part with their hard-earned cash so I will have to be a little more proactive. It's got to be done; the fundraising is an important part of my marathon attempt. There's nothing like being forced to pay £10 so that someone you vaguely know can run two dozen miles in the middle of the biggest bloody recession the country's had in years.

Simply the Vest

I received a certain something in the post yesterday. It was my RNID running vest. It’s a lovely yellow and turquoise, and it fits rather well.

I plan to put my name on the vest. I don’t know whether I will use a marker pen or get it printed on professionally. The latter sounds rather expensive, I would have thought. Either way, it will be a great feeling to hear the crowd shouting out my name. Whether they’re shouting nice things ("come on Martin!") or nasty things ("eff off Martin!") remains to be seen.

I shall wear it and wash it a few times so that I get used to running in it on the day. There can’t be anything more annoying and inconvenient than wearing something on the day that you have never run in before, that will itch and chafe.

Also received in the post were some “essential information fact sheets” including maps and directions for what are known as “cheering points” and a reception after the race for me and my supporters to enjoy the day.

The tension is building. It’s getting closer now. Receiving that vest has more or less brought home to me the magnitude of what I’m about to do. I really am going to do this thing. I hope.

 

Here’s a few pictures of the vest. And yes, that is my living room carpet.

 So you should be able to recognise me on April 17th. I'll stick out a mile in those colours.

If Music Be The Food of Love, Jog On

Stomped the pavements of Woodford, Essex once again. Sometimes I enjoy the training because it is a way of winding down after a hard day’s work at the office and it is a chance for me to forget about all my petty little troubles and just be at one with nature and the world, etcetera, etcetera.

I often run without wearing my hearing aid (okay, it’s a cochlear implant. I won’t insult the intelligence of my readers). Sometimes it’s nice to run in complete silence. It’s nice and tranquil. Silence is golden. As the Tremeloes sang (or rather, the Four Seasons, as they did it first) .Without being disturbed by the sound of traffic, I am able to focus properly on my running. It’s just me and miles and miles of pavement.

On a longer run, though, especially when running for more than an hour, it helps to have something to listen to in order to keep me motivated. To that end, I’ll take my MP3 player out with me and listen to some music while on the run.

My choice of running music tends to be based on the clichés. We’ve got We Are The Champions by Queen, Physical by Olivia Newton-John, Eye Of The Tiger by Survivor, Keep On Running by the Spencer Davis Group, Born To Run by Bruce Springsteen, and so on. You get the general idea – songs about exercise, achievement, winning, being victorious, running, and such like. Not particularly original, but effective nevertheless.
Unfortunately, when you’re going for long runs, these songs tend to repeat themselves so I decided to add a few other songs to the mix but ran out of ideas and rather lazily stuck on my MP3 player any song that had the word ‘run’ in the title. So Runaway by Del Shannon is on there. Band On The Run is on there. As are Runaround Sue, Running Bear and Candi Staton’s number two hit from 1976, Young Hearts Run Free.
Sadly that still wasn’t enough to sustain several hours’ worth of running so I extended the playlist to include any reference to walking. So The Police’s 1979 chart-topper Walking On The Moon is on there, along with Walk Of Life, These Boots Are Made For Walkin,’ Walk Like An Egyptian, Walk Like A Man and The Searchers’ When You Walk In The Room. OK, so it’s not the best playlist ever but it seems to do the trick.

I might vary the theme a little bit. If I’m going on a run that involves going up hills, I’ll have something like Ain’t No Mountain High Enough or Top of the World just to motivate me that little bit further. It is amazing how what you hear can really spur you on. I feel that a lot of people take their hearing for granted. That is partly why I'm supporting the Royal National Institute for the Deaf when I do those 26.2 miles. To raise awareness, not just awareness of deafness, but the causes of deafness. More people are experiencing problems with their hearing than ever before. It's not simply because of an aging population but overexposure to loud noises, particularly loud music, and especially from personal stereos and iPods and MP3 players. I feel specifically that younger people are a bit blasé when it comes to that sort of thing, and don't realise the damage that they are doing to their hearing before it's too late. Even though my hearing has never been good, my cochlear implant has allowed me to hear things that I never would have heard before and since then, I have really begun to appreciate music. It's surprising how much music can affect your mind and your mood, and it certainly can help. Most of the time, anyway.

My MP3 player has been on the fritz recently and the battery life doesn’t seem to last quite as long as it once did. Last week I couldn’t even turn it on (that’s “turn on” as in “to cause to begin the operation of,” and not “to incite sexual arousal”) so my mum kindly let me borrow her iPod on the condition that I brought it back with me in one piece. Usually everything I touch doesn’t last long without me breaking it. I don’t like having to fiddle around with the playlist once I’ve started running. I just like to switch it on and start running. As I quite like a lot of the music my mum listens to (I do have a weakness for the classics), I was happy to use her iPod for a couple of hours. Anything to keep me going on an arduous run. It was pretty good, as I remember. Quite a lot of upbeat stuff on there. ABBA are always good to run to. Even Phil Collins got me going, somehow encouraging me to run even faster than I already was. Then suddenly, Paper Roses by Marie Osmond comes on and that just put me right off my stride. Try as I might, I just couldn’t run to that song.


So, I like running in complete silence, but I also like running to music. But which is better?

I guess it doesn’t really matter. When I run the London Marathon, I shan’t be listening to music. However, I won’t go without my cochlear implant. I will let the voices of the spectators spur me on. That should be motivational enough for me. If hearing the words “come on Martin!” ad infinitum doesn’t work, then I don’t know what will.


So I won’t be listening to the sound of music, nor will it be the sound of silence, but the sound of the crowd.

More Speed, Less Haste

Anybody keeping up with this blog (that’ll be all six of my fans then) will recall from my previous posts that I was soon to run the Roding Valley Half-Marathon. As the event has now happened, I would imagine that this post would be a useful opportunity to explain how I feel the half-marathon went.

I was not sure if I would actually have the strength to start the race, let alone complete it, because I had been suffering from a cold for the last few days. It could have been more of a mild flu than a mere cold though. I had almost convinced myself it was the ebola virus. Whatever it was, it resulted in copious amounts of yellow and green fluid being expelled from my nostrils (along with a bit of red for good measure). Thankfully, I was feeling much better by this morning when I woke up at 6.45am, and I did indeed start the race. In fact, I completed it with a time of 01:47:57 which I think is fairly respectable!

The results can be found at: http://uk.katana3.com/online/event.ctrl?cmd=result&event=1227090910

- for best viewing, set the page to show all entries.
If you cannot be bothered to click on the link, or you are one of those slightly paranoid people who assume that it will direct you to pornographic websites and endless and irritating pop-up adverts (don't worry, it doesn't), then it shows my finishing time, which places me, Martin Pampel, bib number 586, in 363rd place, out of 888 runners (although the last twenty or so did not finish the race).

Weather and temperature-wise, it was rather cold leading up to the start of the race, but it warmed up a fair bit shortly afterwards. Not too warm that I was in any danger of dehydrating. As a matter of opinion, I think these were ideal marathon weather conditions. Not too cold, not too hot. Just fine.

The idea of running a half-marathon wasn’t too daunting since I have already run at least thirteen miles in training with apparent ease. In fact, last weekend I ran twenty miles, as I did the week before. It does get harder after about the 15^th mile or so, but to get to 20 miles is great progress for me, and it’s further than I had hoped to get by this point. 

My reasoning was that if I can run as many as twenty miles, then thirteen miles shouldn’t have been too difficult. It was more the fact the route of the half-marathon was hilly in parts, but I had adequately prepared for this by running up a hill in Roding Lane North during my training. It is rather a steep hill. Not hugely steep, but a challenge to run up it, certainly. Indeed, I ran up that hill three times during the course of my twenty-mile training sessions. This training undeniably paid off because I found the hilly areas of the half-marathon to be no more or less problematic than in my training, so I got through it all relatively easily.

I was perhaps a little too modest in my last post as I was nowhere close to struggling up the hills or bringing up the rear. In fact, I'm relatively pleased with myself. For once I'm not moping around or wallowing in self-pity. I think I shall now relax in front of the telly with a nice well-earned glass of Tropicana, watch a few DVDs and admire the medal I won for this morning's efforts. And then I'm going out to a quiz this evening. Having put my legs and my body through the wringer this morning, I'll soon be doing the same with my brain.

Doing It By Halves

This coming Sunday I shall be taking part in the Roding Valley Half-Marathon. It is pretty self-explanatory. You may have guessed that it’s in Roding Valley and it covers 13 miles, which by astonishing coincidence is half the distance of a marathon. The idea of my participation in this is to familiarise myself with race conditions and grow accustomed to the idea of running alongside other people. This, I feel, will stand me in good stead for the marathon to come.

It will not be the first race that I have taken part in. On Sunday 3^rd October 2010, I ran the Southend 10km (that’s about 6.2 miles, or a quarter of the London Marathon) race on the advice of my uncle Mark. I remember that day quite well. It was a cold October morn. I had been out ‘clubbing’ the night before with some people that I had met on holiday back in July and August. I was careful to leave the party quite early and limit my alcohol intake that evening, though, the sensible course of action would have been not to drink at all. I would have liked to have got more sleep that night but I had to be up early in the morning to get to Southend.

We got there nice and early. In fact, probably too early, but common sense suggests that it is better to be early than late if you’re supposed to be participating in a race.  I remember the excitement building up as more and more people came along and we made our way to the start. I was standing somewhere near the back, so when the starting pistol was fired (or maybe it was a whistle – whatever it was, I didn’t hear it! I just followed everybody in front of me) I was sandwiched between so many people. Flanked by people to the right of me. Flanked by people to the left of me. Masses of people in front of me. Masses of people behind me. It was hard to build up my speed straightaway because I was surrounded by all these people on all sides. After about half a mile, everybody spread out a bit and people started running at their own pace, and I was able to build up some speed and run at a comfortable rate. The view was quite lovely, overlooking the seafront. I wish I had had more opportunity to appreciate the view but I was wholly focused on the race and watching where I was going. Perhaps when I run the London marathon, I will at least be able to take in some of the sights as I run.

Unfortunately I got a stitch in my side so I had to slow down and walk a couple of times, but I was able to resume running after about a minute, and despite having to slow down twice, I finished the race with a very respectable time of 51 minutes and 5 seconds. That put me in 580^th place out of 1460 finishers, so I was very pleased with that performance, being my first proper race. Who would have thought it? Martin Pampel, bib number 1716, running ten kilometres in 51 minutes?

So my thoughts turn now to the upcoming half marathon in Roding Valley. It won’t be the same race. Aside from the fact that Roding Valley is more local to me than Southend, at 13 miles, it is twice the distance of the 10km race (again, roughly 6.2 miles) and while the Southend 10km was completely flat, the Roding Valley half-marathon will be on some hilly terrain, so I expect it to be a much tougher race. At the very least, running up those hills should certainly help me build up my stamina, my strength, and whatnot. It will hopefully prove to be an excellent warm-up for the London Marathon. In fact, the route of the London Marathon is largely flat. It’s just much longer overall.

So, to summarise: The Roding Valley Half-Marathon is this Sunday, 27th February at 9am. The course starts and finishes at the Ashton Playing Fields, comprising a small lap of one mile and then two larger 6-mile laps, running down Chigwell Road, up Chigwell Rise, up Buckhurst Hill (this, I fear, will be the hardest part), and back into Woodford Green again. So if you live locally, see if you can spot me. I’ll be the one bringing up the rear, struggling up that enormous hill. Spare a thought for me, undergoing this torture in the name of charity.

Much Ado About Running

As I type this, it is exactly two months until Marathon Day.

Getting slightly nerve-wracking now. All these months and months and miles and miles of training that I've done add up to a heart attack-inducing 413 miles clocked since August. However, one can train and train and train and train and train and run incredible distances in record-breaking times, but the only performance that really matters is that on the day itself, Sunday 17^th April. Hardly seems fair, does it?

As regards the marathon itself, I have not really got a specific finishing time that I'm aiming for. My mission is simply to complete the 26.2 miles. I believe this in itself is an incredible achievement, considering that I am (or rather, was) a complete beginner at running and that this is my first marathon. 

I don't have a target time, and I'm not aiming to beat Paula Radcliffe or any of the Kenyan or Ethiopian runners who look extremely malnourished but somehow seem to win it every single year. I might perhaps have bitten off more than I can chew but I'm absolutely going to give it my best shot. 

If anything, I'm doing it not only for charity but also for myself. Looking back on my life, I've done quite well academically but on the physical side of things, sports, and so on, I've always been rather lacklustre, or to put it more bluntly, completely and utterly awful. I can't play football, tennis, cricket, rugby (union or league), snooker or even darts to save my life. I was fairly good at rounders at school, but that was only because I was a left-handed batter and I would therefore always hit the ball in the opposite direction to all the other batters. For some reason, the opposing teams never seemed to cotton on to this, so I would usually score lots of easy rounders.

Anyway, I digress. Where was I? Oh yes, I was bad at sports when I was a young boy, and this makes me all the more determined to complete the London Marathon. It’s arguably one of the toughest and most gruelling sporting activities, so to me, it’s all about showing everybody exactly what I can do. It is about pushing the boundaries of physical endurance and ultimately proving my worth to the human race.

Or something like that.

Endorphins and Endorsin'

Jumping forward to the present day now. It's practically mid-February. I've been training since mid-August; that's six months so far, and the marathon is roughly two months away. I am still going from strength to strength. I feel fitter than I have done in years, and for the most part, I enjoy my training. All the cardiovascular exercise is strengthening my heart, presumably pushing all the cholesterol and fatty stuff into my brain instead. My lungs feel better and I've been coughing far less these days. Running itself simply makes me feel good. It's therapeutic. It's cathartic. I'd list some more synonyms if only my vocabulary weren't so limited. (EDIT: It's also salubrious and analeptic; thank you, thesaurus)

Running undoubtedly makes me feel positive in a psychological sense because endorphins are released by the pituitary gland, and these give a huge sense of well-being, apparently comparable to experiencing orgasm or taking morphine. A bit of a shame that my pituitary gland couldn't have released a few more growth hormones in my younger years as a few extra inches of height would have been useful, but at least it's working on the endorphin-releasing front. So even after finishing a twenty-mile run, and I'm in intense physical pain, and am stiff in all the wrong places, the "runner's high" from the endorphins mean that emotionally and psychologically I feel great.

Part of what's motivating me on these long runs and giving me a reason to feel good is knowing that I'm doing all this for charity, and knowing that I have the support of my family and friends. So far, of my target of £2000, I have managed to raise £523.01 (believe me, that extra penny makes all the difference). This means that I am a quarter of the way to achieving that target. Ideally, I would like to raise as much as possible, so if we can go beyond £2000, that would be amazing, marvellous, stupendous, colossal, tremendous, astounding, unbelievable, spectacular, phenomenal (and good, too).

If you have already sponsored me, then I thank you from the bottom of my heart for your generous donation, whatever the amount. Knowing that you are behind me is what's keeping me going. If you haven't already sponsored me, there is still plenty of time before the marathon itself (and there is even a period after the marathon in which you can choose to sponsor me, for those who doubt I have the will or fitness to go the distance).

You can visit my fundraising page here: http://uk.virginmoneygiving.com/martinpampel

By the way, all this money is going to charity, and I don't get a single penny of it, so even if you believe I am the most annoying, immature, pretentious, bigoted, selfish, inconsiderate idiot ever to enter your life and are thinking "why should I give that moron my money?" don't let that prevent you from sponsoring me, because it's the charity that benefits from the money, and not me. You would be doing this for charity, not to increase my bank balance or make me look like some sort of latter-day saint.

Terrier Stricken

In my last post, I briefly mentioned my foot injuries that I sustained early on in my training, but these weren’t the only problems I faced.

In January, I was attacked by a vicious, savage beast. I say ‘savage beast.’ It was in fact a dog. I’m not sure what breed it was, as it all happened so fast and the brutal err...brute just ran at me. Also, I can't tell one type of dog from another. They all look virtually the same to me. It was a dog of some kind, I know that much. I believe it was attracted to the water bottle I was holding in my hand, as though it might be a bone or some sort of doggy toy, or something else that the archetypal dog might want. I could see the dog running towards me from a distance, but I kept on running in the direction that I was running, naively thinking that if I just ignored the dog and carried on regardless, it would ignore me back and just get on with the business of being a dog, doing those things that typical dogs do, like bury bones or urinate against a nearby tree. The dog wasn’t fooled. It kept running at me. I think it was running even faster than it was before. Having already run about five miles at this point and getting tired already, I wasn't sure I had the energy to sprint away.

I haven't the faintest idea what happened to the dog's owner. I could vaguely see a man in the distance, and if he was the dog's owner, he didn't seem to be doing much to restrain the dog.

I threw the water bottle in order to distract the dog, but to no avail. The dog still went straight for me. In the end I thought it was going to maul me to death and then feast away at my festering bloody carcass, gnawing at what remained of my tibia bones, but ultimately, all it did was scratch me on the knee as I managed to get away – and fast.

Which leads me to ask the question: Why don’t dog owners keep their dogs on leashes when in a public place? Surely, unless I'm not mistaken, there must be a rule or a bylaw that says a dog should be on a lead in public. It seems to me that every month, you hear a story in the news that some poor child (and even adult) has been brutally mauled to death by an out-of-control canine, usually a pit-bull terrier which was then “destroyed.”

How the authorities go about destroying a dog, I’m not sure. Do they dynamite it? I’m picturing the scene now. The dog police have rigged several sticks of TNT to the dog. They clear everything within a two-mile radius, and push the plunger down on the detonator. A deafening explosion is heard. BOOM! An eerie, ominous silence follows. Then, people in the street look up as small, pink bits of dog fall at them from the sky. After that, all the pieces are collected and burned in a large kiln.

And another thing I hate about dogs: fouling on grass and public pavements. It's something I’ve complained about relentlessly for years. It's bad enough that dogs crap on the grass because unlike other animal faeces which make good fertilisers, dog poo isn't even healthy for the grass. Dog shit on pavements is something else altogether. It is the bane of my existence. My bête noire. My pet peeve. I'd be pretty peeved to receive a dog as a pet. Man's best friend, my anus. If I ever went on that game show Room 101, I think dog shit would be the first thing that would be consigned to Room 101. Not only does it smell, it's dirty, it's unpleasant and it poses a number of serious health risks. Among other things, toxocariasis (never thought I'd end up using that word on a blog, but there we go) and salmonella and other bacteria. Toxocariasis is particularly nasty and it involves eggs and larvae and parasitic worms that can cause blindness. You definitely don't want that.

 

I accept that it’s not really the dog's fault – it's the irresponsibility of the owners who fail to scoop up and dispose of their pets' excrement. I can't work out if they're lazy or inconsiderate. But still, it's an issue that gets me worked up. I’ve lost count of the times I’ve accidentally trodden in dog shit as I’m running – on the bleeding pavement, I ask you! I shudder to think what the world is coming to.

So, yeah, I guess I'm not really a huge fan of dogs.

Sole and Inspiration

Marathon runners with poor footwear suffer the agony of defeat.

Defeat – de-feet, get it? 

Ooh, tough crowd.

Anyway, pathetic joke aside, there’s a serious point to be made. When going for a run, particularly a long run, your feet are hitting the ground hundreds, if not thousands of times. Running such a long distance puts a great deal of stress on the entire body, but it is your lower body, especially your feet that feel the full force of your body weight. The average runner will experience three to four times their body weight in stress load on the lower body while running. Thus, the importance of wearing appropriate footwear cannot be overemphasised.

I’ll try to explain in straightforward terms that anybody can understand, for the simple reason that even I don’t quite understand it myself. There is this movement of the foot called pronation. This is defined as “the inward roll of the foot and in particular the heel and arch which occurs naturally at the heel strike as a cushioning mechanism.” In the Queen’s English, this basically means that this is the normal movement and positioning of the foot as it hits the ground. With normal pronation, the foot rolls about 15 degrees inward as it comes in contact with the ground. This distributes the forces of impact, supporting the body weight, somewhat like a shock absorber.

However, overpronation is where the foot rolls more than 15 degrees inward as it hits the ground. The shock isn’t absorbed as well and the foot and ankle can’t stabilise the body properly. This is common in runners with low arches or flat feet, and puts a strain on the big toe and second toe as well as the heel.

Underpronation (or supination) is where the foot rolls less than 15 degrees inward as it hits the ground. It is typical in runners with high arches and this puts a strain on the smaller toes and on the legs.

The level of pronation can be controlled by wearing the right shoes that support the feet properly and have the appropriate amount of cushioning, so as I said, footwear is essential to prevent injury (or if not prevent it altogether, then minimise it certainly).

Having begun my training using a bog-standard pair of trainers, I decided to invest in more suitable footwear. In late August I went to a specialist running shop in Chadwell Heath, RM6, and purchased a nice pair of Mizuno trainers for the princely sum of £95.

 

Now, I’m no Imelda Marcos and I don’t have a large shoe collection and I certainly don’t believe in paying over the odds for footwear. Who wants to pay a fortune for a few strips of leather and plastic cobbled together (literally)? In this case I was prepared to make an exception, because if I was going to train for this marathon, I was going to do it properly. No half-measures. No cutting corners. Professional runners tend to frown on popular brands like Nike and Reebok and their ilk when it comes to running shoes, as they’re seen as more of a fashion statement rather than a serious choice of footwear. I’m not quite as snobbish myself, but I see their point. Buying a cheap pair of trainers that merely look ‘cool’ is all very well and good, but they won’t last very long and you run the risk of injuring yourself. You want running shoes that are durable and won’t leave you requiring an amputation.

I speak from bitter experience because I injured my feet in late September and it was sheer agony. First the right foot, only for my left foot to get injured once the right one had recovered. It was entirely self-inflicted because I overtrained. It was made worse by continuing to run through the pain (albeit doing shorter distances), rather than resting my feet, but for some inexplicable reason, it seemed preferable to keep on running and hope that it would automatically sort my feet out, rather than undoing all my hard work by missing several weeks of training. I never really had much common sense, as most people who know me will attest.

I paid the price for this and I’ve learned my lesson, so now I run no more than three times a week. A short run twice during the weekdays, and a nice long one during the weekend when I have more free time.

Fortunately, since then, I have avoided injury, but I am still irrationally paranoid about getting myself injured, especially as the marathon draws ever-closer. I’m more injury-prone than Ledley King and Frank Spencer put together, and that’s saying something.

A Case of the Runs

Okay, this is post number two. I wrote rather a lot in my first post, that I'm doubtful there'll be anything left to write about this time.

So where did we end last time? Oh yes, it's 14th August 2010 and I've just learned that I've been accepted for a place in the marathon by my chosen charity. Up to this point, I had been doing some running, admittedly, not often enough, and not really as part of any fitness plan. Now I realised that it was time to step up my game. It was fair to say that I was an absolute beginner, if not in running, then certainly long-distance running, and definitely marathon running.

I did some research by looking at training plans on the Internet. That was rather complicated as there are so many different training plans, and I did not have the faintest idea which one was right for me. There are literally hundreds to choose from. I'm not misusing the word 'literally' like all the kids do these days (e.g.: "I, like, literally died of embarrassment, I literally jumped out of my skin, I'm literally crapping myself," etc, etc, etc), there literally were so many out there to pick. I just wanted to be told what day to run and how far to run and how long for. Eventually I found a programme that I thought was right for me. I can honestly say that training plans are extremely helpful because they help you progress at a steady and controlled rate. I don't always stick to what the training plan says though. Sometimes if it says "run ten miles," I try to do eleven. Maybe it's because I'm a perfectionist or maybe it's because I'm too bloody stubborn to do what I'm told. Also, in my defence, most training plans are usually only about 12 to 16 weeks long because runners tend to begin their training after Christmas or at the beginning of January. I started my training in August. I was a complete novice after all, and quite frankly, with eight months to go until the marathon, I needed all the training I could get.

I also kept a log of my running, making a note of how far I had run each time.
Looking at the log now, attempting to decypher the illegible scrawls on the paper, the first time I trained "properly," I apparently ran for exactly one mile on Saturday 14th August. When I first started out, I could barely run for more than three minutes without having to slow down or stop for breath. As the months went on, I was able to run for longer durations and cover longer distances as my stamina steadily improved. By the end of September, I was able to run for over half an hour without needing to stop. By December, I was able to run for an hour and a half continuously, which just goes to show that if you work hard at something and keep working at it, you will eventually make progress and get results. So many people take part in exercise, whether to get fit or lose weight, and expect instant results and gratification, little realising that it takes time before you see any signs of improvement, and as a result, they give up at the first hurdle.

At the time of writing this, the furthest I have managed to run in a single training session is 18 miles (16 of them continuously; I had to slow down and walk a couple of times over the last two miles). I think I've come a long way since August. I don't mean to blow my own trumpet, trombone or any other brass instrument, but I definitely think I've done exceptionally well to get this far. I am not going to rest on my laurels just yet as there is still room for improvement.