3-2-1 and you're back in the room!

Blimey so long since my last post. A lot has happened. I moved to Munich in November and had no internet access. I still don't really. Luckily I am near a fon spot which allows free access to Google and it's many sites; which as luck would have it is blogspot!

After moving in November training took a bit of a dive. I lived in a hotel for a few weeks and had access to a crappy gym. The only good thing was a decent treadmill. Sadly they only had one and it was in demand by others. I was lucky to get more than 30mins a few times. I tried outside but Munich was unusualy cold for mid November.

Saying all that on boxing day (Dec 26th) I did the Barrow-upon-soar 6 mile handicap. Amazingly I managed it in just over 42 mins! Which of course is roughly 7 minutes per mile! I was quite shocked and I was pushing most of the way around. The good news was that at as I approached the finishing line I felt like I had just warmed up and could do it again. Amy was fantastic support and on hand to take plenty of photos. She got a bit cold waiting for me to come back. It was pretty cold. A very well organised race. Oh yes I will be back next year!

As I had a couple of weeks off in December I managed to keep a good gym routine too. Plus do the infamous Shepshed and Loughborough loop a few times.

I was feeling good in mid January but sadly the usual work "compensation" nightmare was to start a few days after I returned to Munich which basically through all the hard work out of the window. The compenation nightmare is basically trying to resolve my pay rise and bonus. Every year it's the same. I'm forbidden to talk about it under my contract. But lets say they don't make it easy.

Coupled with all the snow and cold weather in Munich and training pretty much stopped until last week...... I have now found the swimming pool at Olympic park and did a long run today. I'd better pull my finger out. I easily did 12km in an hour. Which isn't too bad. Little was I to know my legs would tell me a different story this afternoon. I'm sure they will be fine.

I need to lose a bit of fat. Being on expenses is not always good. Beer and steaks are probably not the best diet. I have had enough of booze though. I went out last night with a colleage from work. While I was not forcing it down. I was not enjoying the beer. A move to raddler (shandy) or diet coke (better idea!) is order of the week.

The next race is Ashby in exactly 4 weeks! EAK! Well 20 miles isn't that far is it? I have a goal of under 3 hours. Which sounds more than do-able..... very do-able. I hope I can run a negative split. We shall see how training goes. As the nights stay lighter training in the Munich darkness doesn't seem so bad. I just hope all the snow goes from the pavements. It's not great to run on.

I have promised myself to at least do the Vienna half marathon. It's more of an excuse to see friends in Vienna. But the half would be good. How about in roughly 1:30? A man can dream.

Man flu

Oh dear, training went a little out the window last week (after Tuesday). After arriving back in Vienna things seemed to go down hill. Everyone at work had a cold last week and I thought I had missed it. When I was back in the UK I was also exposed to the first good cold virus of the year. Again I thought I had escaped... but sadly not.

After dosing up on the great "Hohes C" a vitamin C drink in Austria (other drinks are available!) I managed to get back out yesterday for 8km and then this morning again for another 8km at the Prater. Vienna was cold this morning but the bright blue skies made it worth going out. Todays run was even under 37mins. Not too shaby.

I suddenly find myself a little sad as my friend at work is not going to wolfgangsee now. Which reults in me not going either :( I was kind of hoping he would change his mind. But I think he wants to concentrate on his triathlon training for next year in the Austria Ironman. It does however spark the though of completing an Ironman..... It's quite odd though, last year I was thinking about the Vienna marathon and now I'm thinking about an Ironman.

For those who don't know and Ironman consists of three sports: swimming, cycling and running. Most importantly it's the distances which are a little shocking: 3.8 km (2.4 mile), 180 km (112 mile) and 42 km(26.2 mile) repsectfully. Having to do a marathon after all of that swimming and cycling sounds a bit of a challenge.

What makes it a bit more of a challenge is that there is a cut off point of 17 hours. Now I would hope to finish in under that... but you never know. Everyone seems to have a goal of under 12 hours.

It is tempting though. I did a small questionaire which gave you a score to show if you are suitable. Because I did quite a bit of swimming training before, a bit of cycling and finally I have run a marathon (ok just one!) but other than that slight embelishment I scored quite well. To be honest it's not the swimming or the running which scares me its the long cycle - oh and the combination of all three!

Of couse there are other options. There are shorter distances: sprint, olympic and half triathlons. Which sound a little more easy on those training hours!

Perhaps just a pipedream, but you never know. If I make it to Munich I can also try and train there a little and see how it goes.

Right lets hope this week sees an improvement in fitness.

London Marathon?

After a few confusing emails from the London marathon team the first week of October is quickly arriving..... which means....? That's right we should know pretty soon if I have my place. It doesn't look good though.

I was reading on RunnersWorld forums that actually there are about 20,000 places available after you take off all the celebs, previous places, charity places et al. With about 100,000 people applying (although perhaps more) it gives you about a 1 in 5 chance.

A bit of me doen't really mind. Of course I want it but it so sad it clashes with Vienna. At least I will come to Vienna next year if I don't get my London place.

This weekend I was stuck in doing house hold bits and bobs (yawn) but luckily managed to be a little sporty on Monday. This week in Vienna I am motivated to pick the pace up again. Not today though...

Again I have been fighting with Birmingham Airport this morning. Which actually for a change wasn't too bad. What I find rather odd is how much energy I have at 4:45am getting ready to leave the house and start my epic journey. Even by 6:30 when I get on the plane I'm still thinking... "8km later at the Prater" to myself. By 6pm I'm already wondering whether I could drag my bags to the apt.

Perhaps an early night and then a morning run... well you never know.

Brrrr! It's cold!

What a difference a week makes. Last weekend I was back in good old blighty; fighting the airports is never fun. However I did manage to see the wonderful rolling hills of the Charnwood Forest and complete my famous Shepshed and Loughborough loop in record time. I completed the roughly 15KM run in 1 hour 20 minutes. Which is just about 5min and 20seconds per KM so I'm getting close.

One thing I noticed was how damn cold it was being back in blighty. Rain on Friday and I actually put the heating on to warm the house. It's a bit of a shock when coming back from warm Vienna.

Sunday was back at the gym just doing a short run on the treadmill; a few weights and then a nice swim. Monday was another fight with those lovely people at Birmingham airport. Queues I had never seen ever! I was even in the business class lane and still so slow. Oh well never mind I eventually made it back to Vienna but it was cold! The change in tempurature is amazing. Schneeberg has snow and Vienna is in single figures. Time to bring back my big warm coat.

Today I went for a run at the Prater and manged to complete the 8km in 38minutes. It felt quite good although I was pretty cold even though I was wearing a running jacket. Winter is coming!

Fingers crossed for a slow long 20-30KM on Saturday. Just as long as there is no snow!

Ashby 20

Ok with the Vienna night run in a few weeks, St. Wolfgangsee in just over a months time I thought it was about time to register for a UK race.

I heard good things from a few people about the Ashby-de-la-Zouch 20 miler or as it's correctly called the Ashby20. Anyways it's not until the 22nd of March but I thought I'd make sure I got my place. Guess what? I'm number 10! I was pretty shocked to find only 10 people had registered. But perhaps not. No doubt it's just the way the internet registration proccess works... well lets hope so!

I put a rough course into MapMyRun and was pretty shocked by the gradients. Oh well it's too late now. Incidently if you are interested and know the course please let me know where the start is. I hope I'm roughly right.

Tonights run at the Prater was pretty good. 10km in under 49mins which is quite fast for me. Luckily the temperature reduced this evening but it's still in the mid 20's. Vienna had great blue skies today. Sitting in the office was not great especially when a colleague headed off for a 100km bike ride at 4pm :( oh well two hours to go!

So let it begin

This blog was started some what a little into my running adventures and is meant to record my progress as I try and break the magical 8min per mile or just under 5min per km.

I ran my first marathon in April 2008 in Vienna. I ran it in just over 4hours and 18minutes. Not too bad for my first try but room for improvement should we say?

Enough of this and perhaps a little more about myself. My name is Rich and I was born some 30 years ago in a town called Loughborough in Leicestershire at a healthily 7lb 2oz or in new money 3.2kg. Wow writing that now I feel rather large at my substantial 74kg.

When I was born I had a slight deformity to my right foot. The tendons were not long enough which resulted in the curling up of my toes and foot which almost made it look like a club foot. Luckily this was stretched but if you look the tendons are still quite a bit shorter than my left. Apart from this I was a pretty health little boy. This little problem sometimes shows itself when I'm running; a twinge here or there but nothing to complain about.

Life has been pretty good to me educational wise I managed to struggle though school passing my A'levels and then headed off to university. I still stayed pretty local and headed off to Leicester to study Computer Science. Through the corrupt British educational system I managed to continue on and some years later obtain a PhD.

Sports wise until the age of ten I was quite sporty as most kids are. I always rode my bike and was lucky enough to have quite sporty friends. One guy called Chris introduced me to swimming at about age 7. I swam pretty much straight though until I was 18 when I went off to university. Of course drinking had got in the way of those Saturday night galas at around my 16th birthday. But I am ever thankful for my swimming fitness which I think is a must for all kids.

But I digress, now where was I? Ah yes around age 10. My so called early peak into sports. At this time my life included swimming 3 to 4 times a week, attending Judo, youth club and of course Saturday night swimming galas. Something rather strange happened one night at school. My mother and I were attending a presentation of activities I would be doing on a school trip to Church Langton. Activities included walks, canoeing and such. After the presentation I tried to get up out of my seat..... nothing... not even any movement at all! Just pain. After a few minutes my legs seemed to come back to life. However something wasn't quite right. I always remember an unconcerned other parent saying something about growing pains.... Yes indeed I thought.

Over the next few weeks it didn't seem to get any better but I just ignored the pain and continued on. Luckily my class seemed to have a medical check up to assess us all. I was quickly pulled aside and sent for a proper check up. Before the day was over I was in Leicester Royal Infirmary in traction.

After about 6 weeks in hosptial the doctors decided they didn't really know what was wrong with me but my hips were a bit injured. Their hypothesis was some sort of virus. Which caused the lubrication around the hip ball to reduce and cause inflamation. This apparently was the cause to everything.

I came out of hospital loosing quite a bit of weight and totally not sporty at all! After a few months of physio my Doctor mentioned arthritis and said I'd be lucky to do much sport in my life. But of course swimming was the best. As I already mentioned I stayed swimming regularly until I was 18 but after that the normal youth activities took off.

After "enjoying" myself a little too much at university and with work friends I started my PhD. This for me was a real challenge. I was my own boss and found the change in pace quite odd. A colleague in my office mentioned he was a regular gym goer before he moved to Britain and asked me if I would like to partner him in the university gym. The craze of gyms was not one I understood. Standing inside doing exercise seemed very odd to me. Nevertheless I decided to give it a go.

We entered this rather small gym which was about 7metres square completely crammed full of a vast array of treadmills, bikes, weight machines and even normal free weights. It was quite late in the afternoon and so the normal student population were up and about and filling the gym. We were inducted around the gym and shown how to use the various machines. Still not convinced I decided to give it ago the next day.

My colleague and I started attending the gym 2 to 3 times a week in the evenings after work. He was the right person to start with he taught me quite a lot on how to use the equipment. "Don't lock your joints", "Keep you back straight" and uttering words of encouragement when you just wanted to give up. Sadly for me this routine of getting up early and going to work all day then working in the gym didn't seem to be compatible.

Even as a small child I was always up at the crack of dawn. Getting up and trying to get my mum out of bed on those Sunday mornings. Even bring breakfast didn't seem to do the trick. Even though she put a brave face on my requests I now think she must have the patients of a saint to have put up with me.

The gym sessions soon converted to early morning ones and I would often be the first or second person queuing to get in and even sometimes beating the first instructor to the door.

The months past by and I was compared to Jason Bourne (Matt Damon - Team America fans permission to laugh). Indeed I had become quite fit; well not actually cardiovascular fit but at least quite muscular.

I grew bored trying to get that extra bit bulkier and decided to get really fit. The years doing swimming galas had put me off doing races. This was just for me. As I mentioned before at the age of 10 I was ill and this affected my ability to run as a consequence of my hip problem. Even in the gym I couldn't really run for much more than 10-15 minutes and so running was out of the question. Cycling that was the plan!

It was Christmas 2002 I bought a copy of a mountain bike magazine and decided to spend some of my savings on a rather cheapish bike. My prior experience with bikes wasn't that good I associated them with that horrible after school paper round I did for 6 months. Which I hated. But lets not go down that route. I bought a fairly low spec bike and headed off from my village into the Charnwood Forest. Quickly a year past and I was soon racing up those hills. I lost quite a bit of body mass but was much happier with my appearance and fitness.

While in my last couple of years at university I was a little worried about my "alone time" during fitness sessions and decided to take up a kind of group sporty activity. I have never been a keen football player but for some reason climbing seemed to tick the boxes for me. I joined the university mountaineering club and really enjoyed it.

After my life at university was over I made the move to perhaps the flattest parts of the great British isles. I moved to London and lived in Essex for around 18 months where the extend work days took there toll on my sporty activities. However I still manged to join the local climbing club and climb once a week.

When I got the chance to come home I would spend the odd afternoons cycling around.

The final chapter in the tale is my move to Austria. In late 2005 I decided to leave London and move back home to Leicestershire. However an option came up that I could help out in Vienna. I thought it sounded like a great idea.

After a hectic first few months settling in I was back being sporty again. Friends at work were active runners and I thought about giving it ago. After a few painful sessions and getting over the fact so many people told me not to run. I was running. Perhaps so many people telling me not to run encouraged me to do it even more.

An Austrian friend told me about a 29km race in Wolfgangsee near Salzberg. Which to me sounded quite like a marathon! Well quite a long way for someone who hadn't really ran long distances before. That Thursday we all went out at work and I became quite drunk... actually the word to use is "pissed". I was so ill the next day I woke up and couldn't get down the stairs of my apartment.

After my recovery day I woke up on Saturday morning and decided to see just how far I could run. In Vienna there is a 4km straight at the Prater hauptallee. I started and had a goal of 22km. Up and down I went at a pretty slow pace averaging about 6 minutes per km. By the end I was dead but I managed to do it. I was pretty impressed my previous distances were between 8 and 12km.

Spurred on from my weekend success I took to the gym doing weights and indoor cycling and of course running a few times a week increasing my modest distances.

Race day came and would you believe the amount of snow which had fallen. Quite unbelievable. After a quite literal up hill start, snow, sleet and rain I was around!

Excited from my finish in Wolfgangsee I entered the Vienna City Marathon in 2008 and managed as I mentioned at the beginning to get around. As so many people say the final few km are amazing, and they are right, the people cheering really help as the pain hits. I actually had lots of power left in my tired legs and picked my pace up quite a bit for a strong finish.

Not being one for doing things by half I'm am now encountering upon my next challenge to try and do it all again only a little bit faster.

Well done if you made it this far reading my indulgent writing. Stay tuned for more.