Monday, August 20, 2018

Bournemouth calling (soon)

Why Bournemouth?
It will be an opportunity to meet up with a school friend who has also signed up to run the marathon. Though that said my biggest motivation is to try to take some time off of my most recent marathon time of 5hr 21mins. Initially when I signed up I was thinking of knocking an hour off, from here though I will be happy with simply bettering my last marathon time in a way that builds me into the winter and a crack at Newport again next year.

What is Bournemouth?
The Bournemouth Marathon is ’running as it should be.’ Beautiful coastal views, a chance to run the Boscombe and Bournemouth piers and a spectacular finish. https://www.bournemouthmarathon.com/marathon/
Held this year on Sunday 7th October 2018 (Start time:10am)
It's 2018 lead charity partner is Macmillan Cancer Support.  https://www.bournemouthmarathon.com/charity/affiliates/?charities_id=175

To answer this another way I turn to wikipedia.org...
The Bournemouth Marathon is a road race run over the distance of 42.195 km or 26 miles and 385 yards. It takes place each October in Bournemouth on the south coast of England. The inaugural Bournemouth Marathon took place on 6 October 2013. It is an IAAF Bronze Label Road Race. It is part of a festival of running which includes a half marathon, 10km run along with shorter races.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bournemouth_Marathon
18 week training plan
The fulsome training plan went out of the window with the summer holidays, a change of job role, and well life in general really. Back on the road now and following a hastily assemble 9 week progression aimed at getting me around in one piece. The plan is my own and relies somewhat on prior experience of what works for me, the big issue (as it has been in most training phases of late) is to try and avoid injury whilst building up time on my feet.

Stretching and strength
I am almost permanently broken these days so I have to find some core strength and fascia responsiveness

Mental preparation
At the time in the Newport marathon when things began to unravel and the lack of preparation became fully evident I didn't have the mental preparation of having run long and hard through fatigue in my recent memory. I far from mentally imploded but it was evident that I was wrestling with plan B the rest of the way without the preparation that would have made the last 10k less emotional.

The biggest challenge?
Overcoming myself and the obstacles that I will no doubt put in my own way - the run with too much intensity, the run when I should have rested, the extra helping of food I don't need, the slavish dedication to a preset plan rather than listening intelligently to my body, and probably above all the pressure to run the time that I want to.

The way forwards
Training sessions will pop up on instagram and strava, and periodically be summarised here so that I can track my efforts and reflect upon progressions (weekly or fortnightly posts - I haven't decided yet). Most of all (and again a theme I keep coming back to) I have to get moving.

Hashtag cloud - #bmf2018 #runbournemouth #andyonthemove #autumnmarathontraining #comebackkid #anothermarathon #marathontraining #newtonrunning #garminrunning #stravarunning #chasingfitness #letsdoit #persistentrunner #slowandsteadywinstherace