April 21, 2010 at 11:27 am · Filed under Running
Last year Phil Packer took 14 days to drag himself around the London marathon route. That’s a slow time but coming only 13 months after being paralysed while on active duty in Basra it’s an immense achievement and the best way to respond to the pronouncement “you’ll never walk again”.
While I’m tucked away under my duvet this Sunday morning, thousands of nervous people will be congregating in Greenwich eagerly waiting for the challenge of a lifetime. I imagine most will start off running but a good few will find themselves hobbling towards the end. Phil will be there with them again but this year he is back aiming to complete all 26 miles in 26 hours.
Phil has dedicated each and every mile to a different charity. His first mile is in aid of arthritis research UK and he’ll be joined by Catherine Bull a young arthritis sufferer who had a hip replacement at the age of 20.
I’ll wake up in time to see many of these heroes crossing the finish line having conquered their own personal battles over the last 26 miles and I know now that I’ll end up in tears and feel inspired to put in yet another entry into the ballot.
Here’s the link to Phil’s fundraising website.
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January 26, 2010 at 11:18 pm · Filed under Books, Equipment, Running
Two mile runs seem to be the new black (@JogBlog) and my latest spree of treadmill couplets must make me positively gothic.
I’ve slipped to beginner runner status again but I’m gradually pulling back and feel happy to be putting in some mileage even if its slow and single figured. The ballot results for the Great North Run will be revealed in a couple of weeks and as my name is in there I’m going to have to start a proper program soon enough. I might even start running outside again which will result in an investment in another GPS gadget and blog posts littered with pretty maps.
Still, I’m getting ahead of myself. I’m scheduled for another 3.1km trog on the treadmill tonight and GPS is just a little bit over the top and besides, if I can wait til September I might get to try out this new toy from Timex.
Despite being practically a non-runner at the moment (and therefore a poor blogger), I am still regularly asked to review or promote running related stuffs on the blog. The latest request was to publicise the first UK running festival, which looks really quite exciting.
It’s called “Love Life Love Running” and is a weekend event aimed at runners and their families. It takes place in the grounds of Cannock Chase over the weekend of the 24th/25th of July 2010. There are two main events: a standard 10k held on Saturday and a rather intriguing 6-hour challenge on Sunday.
I’m particularly drawn to the 6-hour challenge event which is a relay based around a 7km course and can be run by teams of 2, 4 or 6. It suggests on the event website that you can make this as challenging as you like but I haven’t seen the rules so can’t imagine what this means, I’m presuming motorised bikes are ruled out.
As a family oriented event there are obviously events aimed at the kids as well, such as the mini zoom – a 60m course where speed is of the essence. Not my cup of tea at all but there’s a certificate available for every finisher so I could be persuaded.
Anyway, if you struggle to find the time to sneak off to running events it’s well worth taking a look. You can sell it as a family getaway!
Also this week I was sent a copy of the Ultimate Guide to Marathon Running to review.
It’s a large format, magazine style book covering everything from goals, nutrition, motivation, training, technique and so much more. I’m really quite impressed with it and for the price I think it’s amazing value.
I recently canceled my subscription to Runners World mag, not because I was disillusioned with it, but I wasn’t running a lot at the time and after a 3 year subscription I was beginning to notice that the same things would come round too regularly. The content of the Ultimate Guide to Marathon Running magbook is such that you can save yourself an annual subscription to A N Other running mag but still get your fix of motivational tidbits and of course it is solely focused on the marathon distance and event itself.
It has a good training section, discussing various aspects such as interval training and the long slow run but the final 12 week recommended schedules are a bit thin on the ground. There are only 3 schedules illustrated, a 4hrs + (or get round), 3hrs 30 mins or a sub 2hrs 55mins. Personally I think there’s a huge difference between a 4hr marathon time and a get me round time but I suppose schedules are very personal things, there are stacks freely available on the web and it doesn’t detract from what is otherwise an incredibly useful guide to the marathon.
CREDIT: The Ultimate Guide to Marathon Running is available now on the magazine newsstand from WH Smith, Sainsbury, magbooks.com and amazon.co.uk for only £7.99
As I don’t have a marathon on the horizon and my planned half is quite some time away I thought it would be the perfect giveaway for one of my real running readers. Just leave me a comment telling me why you deserve the magbook more than me and I’ll post the book off to the one that makes me smile. You can be cruel but if you hurt my feelings you won’t win.
On an unrelated note, I will just take this opportunity to plug my latest obsession – warriorwoman can now be found masquerading as Big Betty, riding and writing about the new Triumph Bonneville.
If I’m not on here writing about running then I’m probably on whatapalaver discussing the trials and tribulations of motorbike commuting.
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Last year Phil Packer took 14 days to drag himself around the London marathon route. That’s a slow time but coming only 13 months after being paralysed while on active duty in Basra it’s an immense achievement and the best way to respond to the pronouncement “you’ll never walk again”.
