Got any plans?

 It is not like this time of year is ever linked to new beginnings or that people seem to embrace the great new lists of things or anything, but I don't currently have a plan... and that's okay. Should I have a plan? Well probably - I am not fit at the moment so a plan might be good, I have a marathon in my diary so a plan would be good, I have a zwift membership so a plan would be good, and I have started a Leader in Run Fitness course so a plan really really would be good. Just at the moment though I give myself permission not to have one, to go with the flow, and have some down time. The only plan I actually have, in all honesty, is to get a plan some time quite soon and get back onto things.

Rise and fall, quiet and busy, full on and kicking back phases are a part of life that are sometime not appreciated. All go, go, go leads to running out of steam, all no, no, no leads to stagnation and boredom. So I am taking this short time out and then looking to get back on it. That I had an injury before Christmas has 'helped' produce the quiet phase, but as that seems to be healing its perhaps time to have a look at some new years plans... they don't all have to be made on New Year's eve ready for January 1st, they can be whenever you need them.

Hope your moving / activity is where you want and need it to be just now - Happy New Year! 

When a walk around the block winds you

 There is nothing quite as sobering a recognising just how unfit you are, and when walking around the neighbourhood with your dog leaves you feeling more than a little winded then that is that bit more sobering all together. I have not run in a long time, the longest time since I started running, and like many during the recent SARS-Cov-2 issues have been much more sedentary than usual - working from home (the ability to work is a blessing), not commuting, not walking to get lunch, not being able to meet up with clubs easily, wanting / needing to shield relatives, and sitting for huge parts of the day I shouldn't perhaps be all that surprised. I haven't (to my knowledge) had 'the virus' but seemingly have been doing myself a considerable amount of harm.

Today I walked and I Strava'ed it (for the first time in weeks recording an activity) and was drawn to the feeling of having worked much harder than the distance covered would normally have told me I had. I recorded my walk for one reason - a running club member (the chair person as it happens) mentioned in the week that they had missed the quirkily titled Strava outings. Some switch in my head went off, and I realised that I had been telling myself there was no need to log activities cause the tool was not all that... when really I had not been logging activities because I would see how little I have actually been doing.

Where to go from here? I guess the only way is up, but it feels like it is going to be a long way and hard work. When I was last in this condition it was around the turn of the millennium and I hadn't started running yet... 20 years on and it feels like its going to be decidedly more difficult to find fitness again. 

2019 has certainly started

I have belatedly realised that I have not yet posted in 2019, so here it is a post! It has been a busy beginning to the year and so that is probably why I haven't blogged. If you are a follower of my running over on Strava you have a fair idea of what shenanigans I have been up to. I won't write much more now but suffice it to say I have my first ever 20mile race on Sunday. More soon...

...will have to see if I can beat 5 posts this year (my average for the last two years)... no promises!?!?

Three 5k races in a week

After being a lone wolf runner since the start of my 'running career' I have now embraced the world of club running in joining the Pegasus Running Club here in Cardiff. This combined with helping out my wife at an aquathlon led to three 5k race events in a smudge over one week (!!), which is almost unheard of in my running.

In the end I ran these 3 events (in reverse order) :

29-6-2017 Parc Bryn Bach Aquathlon event 2 (run leg) - 00:26:06   [GPS watch time]
Event website http://www.newporttri.co.uk/parc-bryn-bach-aquathlon-series/

The Parc Bryn Bach Aquathlon series provides fast flat racing as well as an introduction to open water and multi-discipline events, in a fun and friendly environment. Our values are to provide a local, friendly race mid-week for people to use as good training and race practice.

Description 'borrowed. from the organisers Newport East Wales Triathlon (NEWT) 

28-6-2017 'The Chase' 5k Cardiff - 00:25:20  * new PB *  
Event website http://www.cardiffrunningevents.org/the-chase-5k.php

The event is a type of Handicap with 2 start times. All the Ladies will start at 7.30pm and all the Men starting at approx 7.32pm with the intention of the first Lady and first Man finishing at approximately the same time. 

Put on by Cardiff Running Events

Photo credit - Luke Heslop (Cardiff running event photographer extraordinaire, and fine runner)   

21-6-2017 SSAFA Road Race Series 2, Cardiff - 00:26:01
Event Website http://www.ssafa5kcardiff.org/

SSAFA is a charity that was formerly (or perhaps is more fully) known as the Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen and Families Association, is a UK charity that provides lifelong support to serving men and women and veterans from the British Armed Forces and their families or dependents [credit - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SSAFA].

It has to be said I am extremely pleased with how the sequence turned out, with a event timed run PB (I have run very slightly faster within Parkruns timed on my own watch) and two strong times either side of it. It has to be pointed out that the heat at the SSAFA event was high (in the middle of the UKs June mini heat wave) and that without the temperature I reckon that would have been the quickest of the three.

Life as a Pegasus Running Club member is proving to be brilliant, in the two club events I ran with two different Pegs as a pacing strategy and thoroughly enjoyed the support / banter / camaraderie. The single issue I have with it is getting beyond my lone wolf runner mentality of 'turn up, run, go home' and get used to taking extra kit along so that I can make a habit of attending the post race socials. So far, because I am unfortunately a very sweaty runner, the thought of hanging about stinking the pub out with my perspiration has put me off of having a slow pint of cold beer with the club posse.

Balancing the balance

Every website, and their subscriber, on lifestyle / fitness will at some point start to describe how to can achieve balance. I, however, can't provide a definition of my own, or a formula, or a roadmap 10 point list, to achieving balance. I can however point out some observations from my experience that might, or indeed might not, illuminate a small corner of the subject.

The first and most important observation is to me an obvious one, and one that is often overlooked in the name of compelling content or salesperson-ship... we are all different. And with that said though we can put ourselves into associations or groups that can provide direction in how best to achieve some balance... the early risers, the late night work fiends, the long slow eaters, the grazing snackers, the all day I dreamers, the all day I doers. So the art of balance starts first in identifying, well, you. What is it that makes you move and gets you started? There is little point subscribing to a fitness regimen that expounds "get your workout done before breakfast!" if you have never ever functioned well before 11am. Similarly there is perhaps little point joining a club in the evenings if you get up before everyone else and have pretty much completed your day by mid-afternoon.

So behind my punchy little blogpost title is this message... in identifying a way of balancing your life look at systems, training groups, session timetables, meal plans, team sports, etc. that fit your own physical / psychological balance, your basic make-up. Going against your own innate tendencies will only make you unhappy with your efforts, much less likely to stick with them, and ultimately further out of balance than when you started.

One final caveat is to look at your balance over time and reassess now and then. I had a whole different balance and pattern to my days during my University degree than I do now as a working, married, father of two busy kids. Balance is fluid through life's path, but try to identify patterns in order to work with them rather than in opposition to them. I absolutely can not claim to have found a perfect Zen like balance (and frankly who but a full time Zen practitioner genuinely can), but I have found things that work for me over different periods of time.

Post-cardiff10k blues + my biggest post-race positive

I suppose it was inevitable after enjoying a race and setting aside the poor (for me*) time that I would get around to thinking about the time. So it was that a bout of the post-race "I could do better" blues set in. It could not have gone a lot better on the day of the cardiff10k but somehow I started with the "what if"s and it was all downhill from there really.

Yes I is my second slowest recorded time for 10k but given the year I have had and the weight that I am now carrying after so many comfort eating snacks could I really beat myself up about it? Well, yes, because my body and my brain knows how it feels to go quicker (for me*).

It took a couple of days for the blues to strike so I had a goodly while to enjoy the glow of enjoying the event. What I am left with is a fresh resolve, and the very real feeling that I should not expect miracle returns to old event times.

The truth of it is that I have tried to change my running form and the I am still in the transition period (or so I tell myself). That I completed the whole 10k in mass participation crowds of enforced pace changes and avoided the inevitable possible collisions of big group running without breaking form was perhaps the biggest single take away from the run.

I have now the half marathon in two weeks two to try and build into. The main aim there will be to come away with the same big achievement - will I be able to run 22+k without falling back into heal striking?

* I know all times are relative and that speedier and slower runners alike will be cross with me unless I try to set things as far as I can in proper context.

That wasn't meant to be a fartlek - and other worries about changes

I went out on Tuesday night for a run that was supposed to be another heart rate running experiment. 7.3km later and I completed what could best be called a fartlek run, with some hefty pace variations and not a stick of heart rate running (except for looking at it occasionally on my watch and cringing). Actually I enjoyed myself, and finished the session with a smile on my face. During the past run sit down and run watch upload I reflected that I have some hard thinking to do before the Cardiff half marathon.

Basically having made a foot placement switch off of my heels, and changing shoes for once and for all, I am firmly in an in-between state where I could happily run a 5k or 10k this way but have no idea how a 21k would look. I would like to run the distance and find out but I know that that way madness lies. Whereas I was not patient with the heart rate running this week I am going to have to be with my half marathon progress - only finding out if I can do it in low profile shoes, on my midfoot, running with a different running form on the actual day. I am more than a little bit scared of the challenge, as realistically I need at least another 12 months or more to work through the changes and make them a comfortable 'default' setting.

The event in 6 weeks or so is rapidly looking like an day out running rather than an attempt at any sort of time.

Oops, the one I didn't post - "Hills? What hills? There are hills?"

Oh dear, I didn't click 'post' on this in the build up to the marathon I did on Sunday. So to get your appetite going for my race report in a day or two here you go.... it was written around the 12th of October...

So far in the build up to the second marathon of my two marathons in a month challenge (for DiabetesUK) has gone really well, but I see a potential bump in the road ahead - hills!! I didn't notice the size of the hills, there are two that are four times larger than anything I regularly run which is something of a training oversight to say the least. In fact I saw the hilly profile but didn't look at the y-axis on the graph and consider what the numbers truly meant for running, falsely assuming they were gentle rolling slopes. So with under two weeks to go until the Bristol-to-Bath run that is not a great deal I can do about it, it is a little late to start cranking out hill repeats or hilly long runs.

Happily last night I ran 25.25 km with the biggest and steepest hill I could think of in the middle, and it wasn't too bad but I clearly noticed I have no clue how to run down hill (running uphill was almost more comfortable). I can't run pan flat Berlin type marathons all the time so it is something that I have to address living in the UK and do more of in future training blocks. Quite what I do about my pacing for the Bristol-to-Bath marathon I am not entirely sure, indeed my current best guess is to go out super conservatively and save energy for the hills (all of which are deep into the second half of the race).

Holiday running

Just got back from holiday, and I am feeling good because it all went really well and everyone had a good time. I managed to run four times in ten days, and on top of that actually managed to lose bulk rather than gaining bulk from holiday eating (and I still enjoyed all of the usual holiday 'treat' foods).

We holidayed in France, as we do fairly regularly, travelling down through the country to a different destination as we do without fail. This was the second french holiday where I have done a decent amount of running, I blogged about my first attempts back in 2013 - My French adventures with training.

For me it was a high mileage week and actually felt very good. Some of the runs were before breakfast, not through any design and more due to time pressures I 'enjoyed' running in a 'fasted' state (oh, how my body complained). The reason I was trying to maintain a good number of runs was of course because I have the Berlin marathon coming up on my radar. It is now just crept under the month to go and three weeks remain, so I couldn't set aside my runs during my holiday as I have my biggest long run coming this weekend and I would have struggled with that.

Rolling farm land and blue blue skies

Rubbish picture but shows the fierce sunshine

Melting, I'm melting... and about to collapse in a sweaty heap (!)

The scenery was fabulous and the facilities where we were staying made the 'job' of getting the runs done nice and simple (washing machine, great shower,... patio to collapse on and recover for five minutes after each effort). In fact facilities were so good I got to pick and eat fresh grapes from the vine, which tasted sublime. I ran in the mornings where I could to avoid the 34 degrees Celsius peak afternoon temperatures, and managed to find a couple of routes that didn't have over keen farm-yard dogs on duty (always a bit of a risk in rural spots I have discovered).

Mentally running on holiday was very liberating and let my mind escape the 'usual' routes of home where to be fair I probably don't appreciate the scenery quite enough. From here now I can take on the rest of my training and the challenge of two marathons in a month with a bit of fresh gusto...

Some numbers for August - 
Runs - 13 (14 - if you count the calendar month instead of full weeks of the month)
Total Distance - 166.3 km
Weekly distances - 47.4 km, 51 km, 17.3 km, 50.6 km

I am aware that these aren't stellar numbers however there has only been one month in my GPS records where I have run further in a month and that was in the build up to my first Berlin marathon. I could only hope that that is a good sign for this coming Berlin attempt.

Almost forgot the other great number from August from our 10 day holiday... 2 lb lost (!) - while on holiday, while eating great french food, while eating french patisserie for breakfast... simply a great surprise to come home and discover.

8.5k to begin a new training plan - injured or not

Last night I took myself out for a run, indeed my second in about 8 weeks thanks to my calf injury. On a very nice day for running (sunny, light breeze, and a cool / comfortable temperature) I set off at a warm-up pace intending to then hit a comfortable controlled 5k effort pace. It was a simple plan and I simply didn't get out of warm-up pace the entire way round, come the cool down I was already cool enough (!). The reason 'plan A' sank was that my legs were not capable of carrying me much faster without the feeling that my calf would 'go' again, there was no sense of strength and why would there be after the best part of 2 months 'off'. In the end I took all the positives I could out of it, after all I ran the whole thing avoiding tarmac (where possible) and ran an entirely new frankly fun route around the park / river.

Over two months of niggling and often painful calf trouble I have turbo trained here and there and tried to do things - frankly though I failed (!!) - I didn't stay fit, I didn't cross train enough, and I really didn't eat well. There was nothing much more I could realistically expect from a first effort back in training. My hit out at last weeks parkrun was good for my soul but set my calf back again, so was silly to have done at the intensity I did.

Now I am looking forward to being back in a plan, whilst probably running only once or twice a week and cross-training all the other sessions in the schedule I hope that the structure will do me a power of good. It is the plan I followed at the start of this year that is good and progressive (and familiar). This time around by applying some common sense (!!) and by not running every and all sessions I hope to get to my next target at the Swansea half-marathon. That target is now essentially to get onto to the start line and get round, all thoughts of progressing my pace questing a faster marathon in the autumn have been forgotten for the moment.

A massive dose of the 'shoulds'

There is a lot written about psychology, everything from the real science through to pulpy magazine soft soap, but over the last couple of weeks I have been indulging in one of those things they all agree is bad... the 'shoulds' or a little more specifically the 'should'ves'. For example:

• I should still cross train.
• I should've avoided the injury in the first place.
• I should eat right.
• I should've read all those run coaching books.
• I should do proper training.
• I should've seen it coming.
• I should've listened to my body not try to stick to every letter of the plan.

None of these things are especially helpful, most are down right unhelpful, and all of them hurt my mental state. Given that these are only a sample, there are some I'd rather not commit to the blog, you can see that I was in a real funk. It was pretty nasty and meant that I was feeling drained even without doing any activity, it even stopped me icing my leg as much as I was advised because I was busy cycling the should list round my head.

All the 'should' stuff is something that most therapy practitioners would have a field day with, and eventually (though not a councillor) I spotted the pattern for myself. Now I have the fun part (!), stripping away all the paralysing shoulds and should'ves and getting moving again. Recognising the problem is more than half the cure, and I know that the moment I get to go for a run again they will almost all disappear.

Injuries seem to have plagued any attempt I have made at consistent training over the last couple of years, and this last one has carried the biggest psychological impact as I put a lot of pressure on my self to improve this year. Aside from avoiding injuries my biggest battle this year will be not to pysch myself out. I want do run the best marathon I can this year, and perhaps the only 'should' worth retaining is this one - "I should just enjoy it". In the meantime I'm back on the turbo trainer, looking to strengthen up generally, and have signed up for a running coaching course in a few weeks time to really get myself going again.

Deeply humbled

The last couple of weeks have seen my training nose dive through the combination of a calf tear and then a huge stinking head cold, to the extent that I feel like have gone backwards fitness wise too. Initial effects of the calf tear were easing with the aid of rest and a visit to see Leon the uber physiotherapist, but then this Sunday I went and re-angered it. Happily in all this gloom I was deeply humbled, admittedly to be fair I am humbled most days by the activities of people around me. I ran with my four year old son on Sunday when I pinged my calf again. His face during the junior parkrun was a picture of delight, joy and fun as we negotiated the course to his 2km best time.

The ping happened in the first 400m as I jogged alongside the happy chappie, I didn't stop, I didn't want to stop, I wanted to stay in the moment, I wanted to not spoil his run and his fun. It was not a bad twinge / re-tear in so far as a change of running form alleviated most of the pain, and it simply grumbled a few more times as we continued. I was utterly in the moment and feeling so humble in the face of the pure delight he was exuding that there was no way I was missing it. In the end his pace towards the finish time was quite breathtaking, especially as he is only just old enough to take part and one of the youngest lads there.

The lil' dude's awesome sprint for the line, and his huge PB

Since then I have had to go back to icing and nursing my leg and trying to look for low impact training / rehab plans, but when I am feeling grumpy I try and remember that moment to put a smile back on my face. Suffice to say though I won't be parkrunning for a while - if only for the fact I fear I'll have to be fully fit to keep up with him in coming weeks :-)

Slumped

The last three weeks through a combination of things I have found myself in a fitness slump, and good grief do I feel rubbish for it. A few pounds on, naff food eaten, too much sleep missed, not enough exercise - has all added up. I am trying to turn things around and get out of it by looking to new goals and challenges, but I haven't found one yet that really has grabbed my imagination. I hadn't realised how much goals have taken over the lead in my on the move activities.

Happily my wife has more than made up for my malaise and has completed her first triathlon. She is busy consolidating on that achievement, and I am more than a little envious right now of her drive. I will be watching how she takes on the next challenge and trying to take a leaf out of her book

Caffeine-free?? Well no actually.

I had a recent bad experience with electrolyte drinks tablets. I use them to flavour water with out all the baddies of those tasty but sugary sports drinks or bottled fruit juices, and with a little more variety than plain water. It was a case of not putting the 2 and the other 2 together and coming up with the right answer.

After a long period of using them I noticed that they were affecting my mood, and that I was looking for them through the day if I wasn't able to have regular drinks for some reason feeling my attention flagging. Then the penny dropped, I looked again at the ingredients list and pondered over the mysterious bag of tricks that was listed as 'green tea extract'. Fabulous stuff for weight loss I gathered... and so is caffeine I mused. I checked the manufacturers website, looking long and hard for mentions of caffeine (or caffeine quantities moreover) and found no mention whatsoever.

Now you could at this point be thinking me naive, and I suppose yes I was crediting the makers with perhaps too much in thinking that they would use an extract derivative that was caffeine-free believing that otherwise they would think to state it was a caffeine drink. Long story a little shorter, I eventually looked up a few manufacturers and only found one that made it abundantly clear up front which of their tablets were caffeine containing and which weren't... which leaves me drinking Nuun electrolyte drink. No bad thing given they have more flavours than the first company I tried and are equally widely stocked.

All I can say as any kind of summary is "thank you Nuun!", as someone who finds caffeine throws their sleep patterns, and to a mild but measurable extent affects their mood it is good to find a company that simply puts relevant information there for all to see.

I never did get anything back from one company I emailed with the simple question "can you tell me if there is caffeine in your product?", customer service is a whole other realm of gripes.

The lost blog post - "So what happened to January?"

Just found this lurking in my drafts, can't work out why it didn't publish. So anyway, seems like a good chance to reflect a third of the way into 2014...

Indeed January was something of a blur, an awful lot happened and I tried out a bunch of different things - some worked and some didn't. I suppose January is supposed to be that sort of month with New Years resolutions and so forth. So what did I try?

Firstly, I tried Plankaday (#plankaday)- a meme within the Twitterverse primarily - wherein you do a plank everyday and log your time held in plank on twitter (they even have a tracker that reminds you if you miss a couple of days - the plank police). I found it good fun and it was a humorous way of tackling a lack of core work in my routine. Moreover it was quite addictive and my times did actually improve over the four weeks of January.

Secondly, I tried to run... to a plan... FAIL - I was broken, a knee issue plagued me all month that was fine in almost all things but running!?! The plan was to get into great shape for the Bath Half-marathon (that plan lies in a quite corner of my laptop weeping), so in light of muscle weaknesses diagnosed by the physio I am going with a short build up to Bath that will then roll into my marathon training for May.

Thirdly, I tried the fat burn revolution (#TFBR) - I got off to an excellent start then the knee impacted training here a bit, and then my birthday came along - ahem, I fell off that wagon, so now I start again over the weekend. I will explain more about the program / scheme in another post where I can do the whole thing justice. I wouldn't call it a fail, but then I won't call it a success either. 

So February I hope will bring more consistencies and a whole lot more running!

And how did that all work out? Well I've been pretty good with #1 and planked heaps, my twitter feed is pretty choca-block with reports. #2 ah well, #2 has been an on going saga though I got round both the Bath Half and Milton Keynes marathon off of cross training but I was not happy or injury free for either of them. I have work to do to be injury free for the rest of the year. #3 still deserves visiting in a whole other blog post, but suffice to say once I am injury free I will be taking the challenge on afresh.

Wittering on Wednesday - Micro-blogging is ruling so far this year

So it seems so far this new calendar year I have been tweeting like a thing possessed, it has taken over any time to sit and actually blog. More happily though it is providing fabulous fuel for new posts... just as soon as I can pull away from 140 characters at a time... I have signed up with no less than three fitness programs / schemes / memes so lots to describe and do real soon.

#busytweeting #sorry #i'llbebackshortly :-)

Q. "How was your year of running?", A. see below...

Taking a cue from a running blog legend, Miss Zippy, I am going to briefly review my running year and join the meme...

What was your...

• Best race experience? Running a superbly consistently paced race in the Berlin Marathon, the whole event was amazing and to cap it all with a near 25minute PB made it near perfect.

• Best run? Oddly I feel compelled to say the Berlin Marathon, because as I hinted above the run gods smiled on me that day (it still makes me smile weeks later). 

• Best new piece of gear?   hat - yup, that's right I bought a hat. It is an amazing piece of modern equipment designed to keep the sun off your head and shade your eyes. Here in the UK I haven't needed a 'running hat' until this summer - I bought a branded run specific one and it was a revelation at keeping me cool and wicking away sweat.

• Best piece of running advice you received? I can't put my finger on one piece as I have been trying to educate myself in the ways of marathon'ing and have listened to and read so much in 2013. Pushed I would say "enjoy a World Marathon major, you won't run many in your life and the experience will be something else".

• Most inspirational runner?  Tony Audenshaw (he does a regular spot on podcast I listen to, and his report on the Bullock Smithy Ultra was simply brilliant).

• If you could sum up your year in a couple of words, what would they be? My year in running - Varied, challenging, and fun.

The end of the year is nigh... already?

So another year is rapidly come to a close, and I have not been blogging or running much since the Berlin Marathon. With the festive break very nearly almost here I hope to pick things up a bit (and finish my Berlin race summary). As it happens I haven't had a great deal of 'on the move' news to report since Berlin as I have sort of been "on a break"... which sounds lovely, but actually means I've gained a few pounds and not exercised nearly enough!

With all that said I have a new plan for my 2014 challenges which kicks off next Monday on the eve before Christmas eve. Having spent too long fostering bad habits I am all set to make some new better ones. Although as I read that on average it takes 66 days to embed a new habit, I have decided to get a two week head-start on all those making resolutions (new habits) on New Years day. Should be fun and should make for blogging fodder... did I mention I'd signed up for a spring running challenge - no - ah, well maybe next post will reveal more.

Yours slightly cryptical, A :-)

Berlin Marathon 2013 - my second marathon - done! pt1 (to the start pen)

It took me a few days to digest the whole experience and frankly to find a moment to sit down to type it up... and then even longer to get my images together and then sit and post this thing. So anyway here is my Berlin marathon 2013 -

The Berlin marathon was my first experience of a major city marathon, and while I have nothing to compare it to I found it an incredible event all round. So here is how it all went...

The weekend started with traveling over to Germany, via Amsterdam on KLM which I had initialled thought would be a draining journey (with the transfer, lots of sitting on awkward seats, and general worry about flying without the kids). Happily the journey went very well with flights on time, good leg room on the aircraft, reasonable food in the transit lounge and so on.

Possibly the most glamorous view of Schiphol airport you'll ever see ;-) 

When we got into Berlin we managed to find the hotel pretty easily, although we realised afterwards we could have taken one bus rather than a bus and a U-bahn. The hotel was brilliant in as far as they were super welcoming of marathoners, had good standard rooms, and a great restaurant. We took a quick walk then settled for a meal in the hotel, which was yummy - I indulged in Currywurst and a small beer calculating it was two days from the race and I knew the dish well enough to know it wouldn't upset my system - oh wow, it tasted amazing!!

Hmm, naughty food and a very naughty (small) beer - what was a boy to do?

The day before the race our sole mission was to go get my race number at the expo, but I also wanted to have a look around the start / finish zone so we would know the best spots to meet up post race and so on. We didn't have an early start to the day, it was still pretty chilly when we headed out which made me think the weather on race day might be fairly good for marathoning. The Brandenburg Tor was bathed in sunshine when we got there (via a coffee shop for a cuppa to revive my wife - I do enjoy that I don't rely on caffeiene to get me going of a morning - sorry, I digress) under clear blue skies, we took a couple of tourist 'selfies' just cause you kind of have to really.

We woz... oh, yeah we woz at the Brandenburg Tor (squinting aside not a bad 'selfie')

From the Tor we headed off to the Expo, wherein I made a navigational error that cost us an hour and a half and a little too much walking. It was just one of those silly things and all I hoped at the time was that it wasn't taking too much out of my legs. The Expo itself was absolutely huge (!) spread across six or seven hangers of Templehof Airport. My feelings of the event were coloured by the amount of walking we'd accidently done - having to walk the length of the place to get the race pack and then back again made commercial sense in that it made all enterants walk past the stands and displays, but rubbed with me as I'd rather have grabbed my number and chilled out. The pick up went pretty smoothly and the lady who gave me my number was super smiley despite the fact that she'd undoubtedly served countless people all day, in fact she was a pretty good example of what I found throughout the event from the organisers and support team - super friendly, super helpful, and super understanding!

The biggest expo I have ever been to, though happily not the biggest queue I have ever been in (different story)

Still tickled that both me and the race were in our 40th years and I get to be 39 because I started a zero not one (ah-ha!!)

The plan then was to head back to the hotel via the route we would take to the race in the morning with a stop for a good dinner (pasta) along the way. Unfortunately with some works to the U-bahn we ended up on our feet a bit too long again but eventually we settled on a pizza restaraurant near a main station. The least said about the service in the place the better (it was diabolical, the first time ever in my life I refused to leave a tip), but the food was good at least (despite starters and main arriving at the same time, yes, it was like that!).

The night before the race and I set about putting everything out for the morning - writing on the back of and then pinning on my race number, installing energy gels in my running belt, putting post run kit in a bag, and working out just what I might need to wear down to the start pen. Within myself I had a plan for the actual race, it was the getting it done that was troubling me a little - running amongst 40,000 other runners was to be a new experience after all. As my head hit the pillow I could feel the nerves were going to rob me of sleep, but in the end I managed always 5 hours of decent shut eye.

Breakfast was awesome, sitting eating a tried and trusted meal (I hadn't noticed my tastes had vered quite so close to a continental breakfast until the trip). We enjoyed a good people watching session noting all the runners in their various old and new kit, and spotted a couple of the pace runners had been staying in our hotel too. My nerves again weren't too bad though the coffee I had with breakfast turned me into a bit of a chatterbox - yes, thats right, coffee (!) which I had planned into my race strategy, I only consume caffeine for racing given the body of literature about its effect on performance and given the positive impact it has had on the few races I have used it for - why not for the big one?

A posse had formed outside our hotel as the sun came up - as we left a group (including pace runners) gathered to set out  across town to the start zone

Setting out down to the U-bahn for our trip to the start compound it was heartening to see that near enough every runners we saw was going the same way. The trip across town was silky smooth, and despite a short queue I availed myself of toilets in the station (ceramic better than portaloo any time). The weather was cool, clear and crisp and I was happy that I brought a plastic poncho to keep warm under.

In the next long overdue post I'll get to the story of my race (from start area to finish to journey home)...

Lazy, or not so lazy post - onwards towards Berlin

8 days to go then the 415+km run, the 10 lbs of weight lost, the 2 pairs of trainers, the £100+ spent on energy gels & drinks, the kids bedtimes missed, the countless extra showers, the training plan, the costly travel, and the organising will have been worth it... Running for a reason... DiabetesUK @ Berlin Marathon
www.justgiving.com/Andrew-BerlinMarathon