All posts tagged: fitness

Ten top tips – marathon training for beginners

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Alright, alright, I guess I can’t exactly call myself a beginner. The upcoming marathon that I’ll be running on 28th April in London will actually be my third. But despite you all thinking that this doesn’t class me as a beginner, you may be surprised to hear that I actually don’t like running and never do it unless I’m training for a mammoth jog around a big city. I ran my first marathon (London 2017) in 03:59:57, my second (New York 2017) in 04:06:34 and soon to be third, well I can only imagine a lot slower than the last two, as the training hasn’t exactly gone to plan. I have suffered injury (hamstring tendinopathy) and am currently one week into the flu, so in total I have only done a total of two outdoor runs. And with the marathon 7 and a half weeks away, I could panic, or I could hold my head high, carry on and follow my own tips.  1. Get good sleep Sounds easy, right? Well if you’re anything like …

Pulling out of the Berlin Marathon – why I’m not being hard on myself

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It’s a phrase you hear often, but yet a lot of people, me included, never seem to listen. Why is it resonating now? Well, as I sit on my poolside hotel bed that we booked as a post marathon treat watching four Englishmen stalk slowly past me to the exit, legs tense, walks resembling John Wayne, I can’t help but feel like an idiot. Yesterday was the Berlin Marathon, one of the six world major championships. I am in Berlin because last year I set myself a challenge to run all six world majors and I was meant to run it. But a couple of months ago I did something I never really thought I’d do. I… dun dun duuuuun, pulled out! I even sighed as I just wrote that sentence. I’m not a quitter, but recently I have come to realise that I set very high standards for myself. Standards that don’t mean a single thing to anyone else in the world. So why do I keep them? If anyone has the answer, please …

Training for a Marathon is Hard

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A few weeks ago, I promised that I would update you with stories of my running progress while training for the London Marathon. I seem to have failed miserably so far, despite having every intention to sit down and do it each week. Instead, I reverted back to the good old pen and paper tactic, using a David Shrigley notebook, whose bright white empty sheets had been staring out at me for a while. It started as a log of time, distance and pace, and over the last couple of weeks increasingly become more of a diary than a page of stats, which makes me realise that I am perhaps ready to write again. So. My progress. That’s what you want to know, right? The good news is that I had two weeks of following the plan, almost to the letter. Then I quickly realised that if I wanted to ensure I did stick to a rigid training plan, I would need to fit it in around my lifestyle. It hasn’t been an easy process so …

Happiness at 30

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It has been so long since I last posted, I almost wondered whether I might have forgotten how to use WordPress. So far, so good. I’m here. I’m writing. And it feels good. I’m currently in the midst of a week of reflection. As I approach the big 30, I am looking back at my 20s in wondrous amazement of everything that has happened in the last decade. I’m not here to dwell on the negative, I am here to celebrate the positive. I arrived back in London in March after a year and a half hiatus, following an awful break up and a very unsettling thrust into abnormality. I am extremely happy to say, however, that after three and a half years, the enthusiasm and passion for life that I once had has returned. 2016 has been an odd year. And I’m pretty sure I’m not the only one to say that. I just had the added bonus of unsettling myself and moving back to a big city that is hard to settle in …