Week 3

I can't believe it! The end of the third week and I am actually beginning to feel like a runner. I haven't lost any weight yet - still eating too many biscuits - but training has been going much better than I expected.

The first seven minutes of each session are always dreadful. It is a battle between the fat, lazy part of me and the part of me that doesn't want to end up in hospital on Marathon day.

Amazingly something happens in the brain at around eight minutes and everything begins to feel better. The aches and breathlessness begin to fade and I settle into a rhythm and a sense of euphoria at the simple achievement of not giving up.

Apparently this is something to do with endorphins. I believe these are tiny little fish like creatures that swim around in your brain tickling the happy sensors. Endorphins spend most of the time imprisoned but are released when you exercise, eat chocolate or eat hot foods like curry and chili.



I have spent the last twenty years releasing endorphins using the curry and chocolate methods which is of course counter productive and has resulted in the need for me to call this Blog FAT MEN can't run. Without the endorphin releasing chocolate and curry I may have been able to call it "I am a thin man running another Marathon".

I admit, this title may not have sparked your interest as much as the fat version and it would have been far more difficult to write the triumph over adversity story that I intend to but it would have been easier on my knees to run at below 19 stone.

Mary called today!

Well actually, it wasn't today but that is what I would have called this post had I written it on the day that Mary did call.

Mary is a lovely lady from Barnados. She is coordinating the team and fundraising for the 2009 London Marathon. I have spoken to Mary a few times as in order to get a place in the Marathon it is better to affiliate with a charity. You can go through a public ballot but based on the fact that the ballot is in October, I didn't feel much like doing six months of training only to find out I couldn't get in.

Mary called to let me know that I had been selected by Barnados to run for them. The only thing I have to do in return is train for the next 47 weeks and guarantee to raise £1600 in sponsorship. If I don't raise £1600 then I have to pay it myself.........potentially an expensive way to see London!

So fundraising starts now. Barnados have provided a number of hints and tips from selling your belongings on Ebay to selling cakes at work. Neither of these options appeal, I am quite attached to my belongings and I would probably eat most of the cakes. I therefore must come up with new, imaginative ways to raise the money.......................mmmm!?

Day 7

The end of the first week. A week in which I have tested my body to destruction. Well a week in which I have trained three out of the four sessions planned. Not bad considering the number of times I have written a training plan and then given up after the first weekend.

The injury list is already growing. Sore left hip, graized right knee and a sore toe. The toe injury occurred during my second training session. The unfortunate product of having an unusually protruding second toe.

This has always been the case, but the combination of new running shoes and the unusual activity of actually running in them caused my extra long toe to explode. The ensuing pain caused me to investigate the cause and on taking my running shoe off I realised that my new special running ankle socks (bought with the shoes on the advice of the "Fitness Expert") were not only good for rapid sweat absorption but also for rapid blood absorption!

Even closer inspection revealed that the injury was a tiny toe nail nick. It was the special "wicking" technology in the sock that made the blood spread in a way that I hadn't seen since first discovering blotting paper when we were first taught to use a fountain pen at school.
I always ended up with more ink on my hands and up my arms that on the paper. If only they had invented special "wicking" fountain pen training gloves.

The graized knee was actually caused whilst I was painting the bathroom on the day when I skipped training. A salutary lesson that I will keep with me for the next 49 weeks.

So today, at the end of week one, I completed 3.3 miles during my training session. Amazingly I don't feel too bad. Next week the distances get longer, let's hope my body can stand up to the punishment!

And so it begins.....

That's it, I have completed my training plan. Fifty weeks, starting with gentle walking in 30 minute sessions and culminating in 18 milers just before The Big One. As you can see, I am already starting to use the language of the long distance runner.

I am very pleased with the plan. I have scheduled a number of actual races to gauge my progress. Some have been easy to enter, whilst others are more difficult. The highlights of the plan are as follows:

22/06/08: Leeds 10k
21/09/08: Tatton Park 10k
07/12/08: Santa 2k Snowdonia
10/01/09: Edinburgh Winter Run 5k
09/02/09: Longleat 10k
22/03/09: Wilmslow 1/2 Marathon
26/04/09: Flora London Marathon

I couldn't resist the Santa run in Snowdonia. I thought it would give me an insight into running in fancy dress prior to the Marathon. Haven't decided if I will run the Marathon in fancy dress or in serious athlete stuff. I expect I will make a decision nearer the time depending on the times I am running. If it looks like I could win it, I will probably ditch the Rhino costume.

Longleat should give me some motivation, what with all the wild animals, hungry for fresh meat. I expect to get a PB here.

So there it is. I have scheduled races (some of which I still need to register for) and put my entire training plan into a colour coded spreadsheet. Now, all I have to do is complete it. Fifty weeks, seven races, one overweight would be Marathon runner.

Preparation H

Yes, that's right. My extensive research into Marathon Running have yielded the following nuggets of information. To be a Marathon Runner I need to buy plasters, Vaseline and Preparation H.

The plasters prevent nipple rub caused by friction. The Vaseline prevents chafing of those delicate areas caused predominantly by having chunky upper legs and thighs - a by-product of enjoying too many chocolate biscuits.

Finally, Preparation H is used to speed up the process of healing...................blisters! It's intended use has yet to feature in any of the Marathon running research I have conducted. If however I find a link between Marathon running and Hemorrhoids, I will report it immediately in these pages.

I will shop this week for all three items. The application of which will go alongside the practice of taking an ice cold bath at the end of each training session. This apparently works well for Premiership Footballers in the prevention of cramp and muscle stiffness.

I am told that the heated seats of a Bentley Continental also aid muscle stiffness but as I am not a Premiership Footballer I will have to settle for the ice cold bath. Now I wish I had gone to summer holiday football practice when I was a child instead of watching all those 1930's episodes of Flash Gordon. If only each one hadn't ended on a cliff hanger with Flash certain to die at the hands of the evil Ming the Merciless!

Fail to prepare....etc

My favourite part of any new project has always been preparation. With preparation you get all of the buzz of being involved but none of the pain. This goes back to my school days when I would spend hours drawing out a revision timetable. I would then ignore the revision timetable and have to draw it out again.

So, understanding how it works, I started preparing for the Marathon 2 weeks ago. The first thing I did was to declare to everyone, "I am going to run the London Marathon!" This was met with a consistent response. Over the years, my closest friends and family have seen this before. I make grand statements, often very grand statements. Often these statements are followed up with little or no action. The people I love most have learned to tune this noise out. Was this going to be another grand statement?

Usually the person that takes my declarations most seriously is my Mum and this time was no exception. Twenty four hours after telling Mum that I was going to run a Marathon I received a call. "I am going to buy your running shoes!"

I explained to Mum that running shoes were expensive and I was planning to buy some good ones at the weekend. My Mum is one of those people who get an idea in their head and will not take no for an answer. She had decided that I was incapable of choosing and buying the correct pair of running shoes and without them I would suffer a succession of crippling injuries.

Never being one to swim against the tide I caved in and agreed to let Mum buy my shoes. I did however offer something in return. Mums never loose the urge to nurture and my Mum is no different so if she was going to buy me the shoes, the least I could do was let her take me shopping.

Last week, for the first time since I was 13 years old, me and my Mum went shoe shopping. Armed with 10 minutes research on various Internet sites we arrived at JJB Sports and headed straight to the back wall. Here you can find a baffling array of trainers, running shoes, fashion shoes, astro turf shoes and many more.

What followed was 10 minutes of orientation which concluded in the realisation that we didn't have a clue what we were looking for. My Mum decided that we needed to enlist the help of an expert. Turning to the chubby, bald, 50 old wearing a suit stood next to her she asked, "Which are the best shoes for running?"

The nice chubby man looked slightly startled. Obviously he didn't work for JJB Sports so why was this women asking him about running shoes? He was equally baffled by the different types of shoes. Mum concluded that this man couldn't help and like an Exocet missile took aim at a real shop assistant.

The shop assistant in question was a pleasant girl, about 18 years old. I suspect that she was working there to supplement her income whilst at college. Mum called her over and proudly declared, "My son is running the Marathon and needs really good running shoes."
I imagine that this girl has met many people in the course of her work but never a 34 year old fat man buying shoes with his Mother. At best, I imagine that she thought I was a little slow.

Knowing that I needed to recover my credibility quickly I embarked on a diatribe of technical jargon in relation to the type of shoe I needed. I used phrases like "Motion Control" and "Over Pronation" which I had remembered from my 10 minutes of Internet research.

The shop assistant now thought that I was a little slow but had an obsessive technical knowledge of running shoes. She had a look of concern. Maybe I was a little autistic. She gave me a sympathetic smile and asked, "What colour running shoe would you like?"

I replied, "Please bring me anything you have in a size twelve." A short time later she returned with a box containing a pair of silver Nike Air Pegasus+ running shoes. I tried them on, they fitted and I am not ashamed to admit that for the first time in this project I felt a little bit special. There is something about buying expensive equipment that makes you feel you have taken another step towards your goal. My garage is full of dusty, expensive equipment from past projects.

So armed with my new shoes, I only had one more thing to complete before getting down to the real hard graft. Draw up a training timetable.

Day One, Week One

Well, here goes. Day One, Week One. If you're not bored yet you may be asking, Day One, Week One of what?

Maybe I should begin by introducing myself. I'm a fat (19 stone) Early Middle Aged (34) Over Tall (6ft 6ins) non running, unfit, average bloke. I haven't done any exercise of any sort since I was 14 years old. I go to work. I watch TV and I sleep.

I am going to run the London Marathon. I am doing this not to prove something to myself, or to prove something to anyone else. I'm not trying to raise huge amounts of money for charity (although that will be a nice by-product) or to make any political statements. I am simply interested in what happens when you run a Marathon.

Every April I find myself on FLM (that's what real Runners call the Flora London Marathon) day sat on my sofa watching thousands of people running, walking, staggering around London, each achieving their own personal goal. It's like watching thousands of It's a Knockout contestants climbing their very own Everest but without Stuart Hall laughing at them in commentary.

This year I finally thought, "Why?" You would think that this question would have struck me during one of the last 25 runnings of the event. Not so. In previous years I have simply accepted that this happens. Every April, thousands of people descend on London, covered in Vaseline and hemorrhoid cream and run.

So, without any other agenda, I am going to run the London Marathon. Simply to find out what it is that makes people do it. Why they keep coming back and why some of them insist on making it harder on themselves by dressing up in all manor of costumes.

So, today is Day One of Week One of the 50 week build up to the FLM 2009. Sorry, I am not a runner so I am not allowed to call it that. For now, I will just call it The London Marathon.......don't want to get ahead of myself.