I can run for miles and miles and miles

Just about fifty days until the London Marathon now.

In the whole of February, I have run more than a hundred miles, and this is more than I accumulated in February 2012 and in February 2011, so there’s no doubt about my ability to put in the extra effort.

I am not yet wavering in my motivation to go out on long runs or get out of bed at an insane hour to get a few miles in before going to work. A lot of other people would probably have tired of the endless running by this point, but I seem to have this uncanny knack of being able to focus on a task and see it through to the very end. My manager at work has commented on my admirable knuckling-down skills. I treat pretty much every task I do with the same level of determination and dedication.

Last weekend I was back in Essex, visiting family and friends. Went to a school friend’s stag party on the Saturday. There I indulged in the usual stag party “activities” and had a few drinks but not too many because after arriving home at 1am, I was out of bed again at 7am to do another long run at 9:30am. 

Virtually all of my training over the last three years I have done alone. Every step on every pavement, all by myself, alone with just my thoughts, and the only interaction I have with fellow human beings are when I pass some other runner or get shouted at by drivers to "watch where I'm f*cking going." That’s the kind of person I am, really. I prefer to run by myself at my own pace, with nobody to hold me back and slow me down, or speed past me and make me exhausted trying to catch up. However, last Sunday, I changed all that and decided to run with my uncle and cousin, both of whom are also running the London Marathon. 

It was nice to have a bit of company for a change, even though I did not run alongside them for most of the time because I was a fair bit faster than both of them. Whenever I ran past them, I would carry on to the end of the road and run back to where they were, run alongside them and carry on again. By doing this, I was able to run a total of 18 miles even though I had run on exactly the same streets as my uncle who had done 13.

We ran along the streets of Chingford and Woodford Green. All very pleasant, despite the cold, and a welcome change of scene. There was this very nice pond in Chingford, and I did three circuits of the pond. I could have run twenty miles if I had wanted to, just running round and round that pond. It's a rather nice little pond.  One can tire of running up and down the same old streets all the time. After a while, the streets just repeat themselves like the background to a cheaply made Hanna-Barbera cartoon, so it was a joy to run somewhere different. I would do it a bit more often but tend not to run to areas that I am not familiar with, just in case I get lost, so it was a good thing that I had some company.

I'm preparing for another long run this weekend. We're going into the month of March now, so this is where the runs get longer and more intense, before I start tapering down in April. Surprisingly, I haven't managed to injure myself again but I'm sure it's only a matter of time. This is my big problem, a slight lack of confidence in my own ability. Each time I go out for a run, I constantly worry to myself: "is this going to be the one where I get injured and my leg breaks/knee pops/foot falls off/I die?"

A run do

The date of the London Marathon is (very slowly) getting closer; it's sixty days away and we're coming up to two months to D-Day. Or should that be M-Day?

The training is still going well and in the last few weekends I have run twenty miles. Adding this to my short midweek runs, I have already totalled more than eighty miles this month alone. Providing I stay injury-free, I think I'm on course to challenge my personal best set in last year's marathon. Whether I beat it or not is anybody's guess.

My last long run was a nice one. I decided to shake things up and try a new route for once. After running the six miles to Bury, instead of turning back towards home, I continued on to a nice little town called Ramsbottom, another four miles in a northerly direction, before then heading back ten miles to my apartment, making a nice round twenty miles, all in all. Ramsbottom, now my favourite place name, second only to Cockfosters. I have never run to Cockfosters before, nor have I ever been there, but there's always a first time for everything.

The weather has started to improve a little. We've actually had sun for four days in a row, which means something is bound to go horribly wrong soon. A snowstorm, with 25 inches of snow probably. The temperature has started to get a little warmer as well, although it was freezing cold when I went for a run at 7am today, and stupidly forgot to wear gloves, which meant that by the time I returned to my flat after running seven miles, my fingers felt like they were frostbitten.

Fundraising is going well, albeit slowly. So far I have been sponsored by 13 donors, for an amount not far off £300, about 13% of my £2000 target. I hope I get more sponsors and I'm not stuck on 13 donors and 13% as I'm extremely superstitious. Probably means it'll take me 13 hours to finish the marathon.
Anyway, the amount raised - so far, so good, but it could be a bit more. After running this race twice before, my friends are probably fed up of having to sponsor me again. My running tales about running from Manchester to Bury and back again, or even the fact that I'm doing my third marathon in three years are no longer impressing anybody. Nobody cares. It's getting so that I'd have to run it backwards or naked, in order to get a bit of interest and appreciation for what I'm doing!
No, I am not doing the Marathon naked. Over my dead body. Then again, the ancient Greeks ran naked, and if it's good enough for the ancient Greeks, who gave us the Olympic Games, democracy, science, the theatre, architecture, sculpture, philosophy, among other things, then it's good enough for me. Although I'm not sure if the original marathon run from the Battle of Marathon to Athens by Pheidippides was done in the nude. Perhaps I could be the first.

If anybody reading this would like to sponsor me, please do so at: http://www.justgiving.com/martinpampel - don't do it for me, do it for the kids! Help a very worthy cause. Please. Think of the children.

Sore Spot

I have managed to complete several long runs in the last couple of weeks, largely thanks to my training programme not being interrupted by snow or injury. After running twenty miles yesterday, I am in pain. In fact, sheer agony, but I am not injured.

It is not my feet or knees that hurt, but my inner thighs, which are extremely sore from my shorts rubbing against my skin for the last two hours of the run. The friction has more or less scraped off some skin on my legs. In my three years of running, I have never had a chafing anywhere near as bad as this. The pain was horrendous, and it felt like someone was taking a cheese grater to my legs, and looking at the rash on my legs now, it does look like someone has attempted to shave me with a cheese grater.

They say a picture paints a thousand words, so hopefully this image will demonstrate the amount of pain that I am in:

Having a shower afterwards was pure torture and felt like I was washing my legs with sulphuric acid. Oddly though, given that it is a more common chafing complaint, my nipples are absolutely fine, no problems there.

My legs are still very sore and for most of today and last night, I have been walking slightly bow-legged. People will start to think I've got rickets or I've soiled myself. However, I'm prepared for next time as I went to the supermarket this morning and bought several tubs of Vaseline, ready to slather all over my legs and other sensitive areas.