The Athens Marathon is approaching at the end of October, as is the Royal Parks half marathon in the middle of the month and it’s been a while since I’ve done a really long run.

One of the things about not doing the challenge any more is that I am able to take rest days and I hope this is going to improve my performance and so I set off yesterday morning at 7am with a spring in my step, despite the cold and drizzle.

My plan was to run the seven miles from home to Green Park, meet up with my pal Dave and a couple of other lads who are also training for the Royal Parks, do eight miles with them and then run as far home as I could.

According to my training program, yesterday should have been a 20 miler but with no real long for a few weeks, I’d decided to settle for 18.

Getting into town was relatively easy, I wasn’t bombing it, but neither was I taking it easy, the few days rest were obviously doing their job.

I hooked up with David and the boys at around eight, luckily, one of them was doing his first half marathon, had not done much training for a few weeks and wanted to take it easy, so we let him set the pace for the eight miles we had to cover.

We ended up doing a huge figure of eight around Hyde Park before rounding Buckingham Palace through Green Park, down the Mall to Trafalgar Square and down Whitehall, past Downing Street to Westminster Tube. It was all at a rather leisurely pace of around 10.5mins a mile.

We split up here and I headed back over Westminster Bridge to South London, we were at around the 15mile mark and I knew that every mile I could add on from now on was in the bank as training for Athens.

I decided to pick up the pace again for a mile or two but coming into where Oval starts to meet Brixton, I was getting less and less hopeful of being able to do any more than 18: my glutes and calves were on fire, though I was glad to feel mentally really strong.

In Brixton, just by the bus stop where busses come back to Streatham, I’d had enough. I’d slowed right down by now and decided to call it a day, jumping straight onto a bus – bugger it, I’ll stretch at home I thought. Bad idea.

By the time I was back in Streatham, I’d totally seized up and it was much too late to stretch out, so it was a hot bath for an hour and lots of neurofen through the day.

I’m aching like heck this morning and just glad to think I don’t have to do three miles – though poor Andy is probably about half way through his run at the moment!

In the meantime, I managed to squeeze two countries into my final run… We’re in Shropshire for the weekend, very close to the border with Wales and so I decided to there and back this morning. I also realised I was 7.35 miles off running 1520 miles for the year and I like round numbers – plus, why run three miles when you can do seven right?

The weather was quite grey and drizzly when I set off, a slight chill in the air but great running weather. Despite the stunning scenery around here, I had to do the first two or three miles along the A5 as trucks sped past… it was the most direct route into Wales but also there were no turn offs into any of the villages either side, so I had to get to a roundabout.

Once I turned off though, it was all winding lanes, deep valleys and aqueducts – there’s loads of em around here.

Serendipty rose her head again, just as I crossed the border, a song by local heroes the Manic Street Preachers came on my iPod and when I turned back towards our hotel, The Lion Keys, by running along a canal bank, the second to last track on my playlist was I Ran by Flock of Seagulls – you couldn’t make it up.

Miles today: 7.36
Target: 1095
Miles to date: 1,520.01
Please donate to my chosen charities by clicking here

Today’s run

To avoid last week’s long-run malaise where I ran out of gas, I made sure I had a couple of bananas and spent an hour sipping on a Maxifuel sports drink before going out. I also loaded up a 2litre skin with a mix of water and Lucazade sport and loaded it into a back pack.

I headed off from the house towards Wandsworth and then cut west to Wimbledon, going around the outside of the Common before coming back to Streatham via Morden.

And it was all fine, no problems like last week at all and, aside from the glutes and hams being a little tight towards the end of the run, it all went fine.

While it was nice for me to run injury free, the Garmin is obviously on its last legs. The LCD screen is starting to drop out on the bottom right to the point I cannot clearly see some tenth-of-a-mile figures. .6 .7 .8 and .9 all look almost exactly alike meaning I have to do some guesswork to find out where I am. Just three more weeks is all I need to squeeze out of it…

Click here for a link to Garmin Connect for a map and details of the run

Miles today: 16
Target: 1032
Miles to date: 1,448.68

Please donate to my chosen charities by clicking here

According to my program, today’s long run should have been a 12 miler, so I roughly mapped out just over 12 miles using the walkjogrun.net site and set off, bright and early just after seven am.

I love running in London at that on Sunday’s. Most people are still in bed and there is only a certain hardcore that are up and doing stuff.

I headed out through Wandsworth towards Battersea and crossed the river by Battersea Park, running down the embankment in Chelsea for a bit before heading back south and through Clapham to home.

According to the schedule, I should have taken it slowly today, around 10 minutes a mile but decided to go faster than that, just to see how I could do given it’s a while since I’ve put more than 12 miles on the clock.

It turned out my calculations were a little out thanks to my taking a detour and I ended up running a little over half marathon distance and covering 13.2 miles. A measure of how far I’ve come in running came from my time. My training half marathon time is now as good as my race half marathon time… I might have to go for a PB next time I run one.

Click here for a link to Garmin Connect for a map and details of the run

Miles today: 13.2
Target: 990
Miles to date: 1,367.05

Please donate to my chosen charities by clicking here

Now, one day into training for the Athens Marathon and with my first speed session under my belt, I can feel them coming back…with a vengeance.

On top of that, various other bits are going wrong. Im knackered, have a severe case of athlete’s foot, got a really bad, stitch today for the first time since i was a kid, have a couple of toe nails looking seriously out of shape and a few what seem to be permanent blisters on my feet. Ouch.

Click here for a link to Garmin Connect for a map and details of the run

Miles today: 5
Target: 957
Miles to date: 1,306.05

Please donate to my chosen charities by clicking here

A quick visit to the Runner’s World website put that right though and I devised a program to take me through the 13 weeks left to the race itself.

The good thing about the RW programs is that if you have a Garmin watch, you can download the routines to it and when out on a training run, it will tell you whether you need to speed up or slow down.  I want to beat my previous marathon time in Athens, despite it allegedly being a tough course, so I have aimed for a program to get me over the finish line in 3 hours 45 mins.

This morning’s routine had me doing 0.5mile speed splits. Basically, you run a mile to warm up, run half a mile at well above race pace, do 0.12 of a mile slowly to recover and then go again – six times. By the time I got back I was sweating even more than I usually do, but I’m pleased to get the first training session out of the way – plus I passed 1,300 miles into the bargain.

Click here for a link to Garmin Connect for a map and details of the run

Miles today: 5.40
Target: 954
Miles to date: 1,301.05

Please donate to my chosen charities by clicking here

I swear there was a time, maybe ten or 15 years ago, where doing any kind of exercise, never mind a big challenge was kind of frowned upon. It seems like it used to be that instead of counting the miles you ran, the number of pints you drank was your badge of honour.

I’m not sure where the change came from – these days it seems everyone is at the gym or racing a 5k or half marathon – but I suspect it came over from the States. While the Midwest may still have its fair share of dumplings, New York and LA have always been terribly body conscious. And over the past few years, people have taken it one further by raising cash for charity at the same time.

Whatever the reason, Greece, where I was brought up and where my mum still lives, is still pretty much behind the UK when it comes to this kind of thing. Sure people go to the gym and they don’t drink loads but you hardly ever see anyone out just pounding the streets simply because they enjoy running. And no one does extreme events for charity.

I was telling George, my Greek brother-in-law about the Portsmouth Half Marathon the other day and how some runners had mates located around the race who would pass them a bottle of water or a banana. He said: ‘In Greece, your mates would be passing you a cup of espresso and a fag’ – and he was only half joking.

So trying to explain to my mum what I’ve been doing for the last six months has all been a bit of challenge. She’s 75 bless her and not lived in England for more than 35 years so the idea of running for fun, running loads and raising money for charity by running are alien ideas.

She gets that I’m running a lot… but that’s about it. I was telling her about Sunday’s half-marathon yesterday and the conversation went something like this:

‘So mum, I ran this half marathon.’
‘What’s that?’
‘It’s a race, like a marathon but half the distance.’
‘So it’s not a marathon?’
‘No mum, that’s why it’s called a half marathon.’
‘So did you win?’
‘No, I came 174th’
‘It sounds like you had no chance of winning.’
‘I didn’t’
‘So why do it?’
‘For fun, to take part, to see how good I am.’
‘Trelos.’ (it means crazy)

A bit of silence followed where I think neither of us knew where to take the running conversation. And then she came back with:

‘So, with all this running, will you be training for the London Olympics?’

Bless her, she really did think I had a chance of running in the Olympics, despite the fact I’m 42, have been running seriously for less than a year and have knackered legs.’

You’ve got to love mums, they always think their kids are the best.

Miles today: 3
Target: 564
Miles to date: 741.07

Click here for a Google Map and full details of the day’s run

I won’t harp on about this every post otherwise the blog will become more about fundraising than about the challenge… but I’m overwhelmed that, with Gift Aid, I’ve already raised more than £700. Thanks so much to all that have donated and to all those that haven’t… get your fingers out

Last night, I finally gave in and after three days of not taking any Ibuprofen, I slipped a couple before bedtime. This morning, the legs felt looser than in days, still a little bit of grief but not even a quarter as bad as yesterday. Was it the Ibuprofen that did it or time? I’m not sure but it made today’s run on the treadmill at Virgin Active much easier.

I’ve also taken my running quests a little further and signed up for this year’s Athens marathon on October 31 (six weeks after this challenge ends). This year is the 2,500th anniversary of Greek messenger Pheidippides running from the Battle of Marathon to Athens to declare victory over the Persians. He promptly said ‘Nikee’ (which means victory and is where the Nike brand comes from), keeled over and died… Lets hope I don’t have a similar fate.

Click here for details of the day’s run

Miles today: 3.13
Target: 561
Miles to date: 738.07