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.