First entry

A minor miracle has come to pass, I have set up a blog! I am told this site is the best and easiest one to use but some of it still seems a little less than straight forward. No doubt that is down to me being useless with computers.

However, this blog is to be about Fitness training. More specifically my training over the coming 2+ years that will finally see me running across the Sahara Desert, Morocco. Dont ask why, becasue I know I would sound daft if I said; 'those who ask the question will never understand, those who know simply feel the answer'. That is obviuosly a completely stolen quote and one which is slightly untrue in my opinion. I believe that even complete couch potatoes have in them the capacity to fall in love with exercise. And from there, the sky is the limit!

Anyway, first off I should warn you that I have no experience of writing and have only ever kept a diary once before and that was about 10 years ago and that did not last very long. So there you have it, I have never even written consistantly in private so forgive these public ramblings! I reallly do have no idea about grammer and where all the little dots, commas colons etc live. So, sorry in advance.

Right then. If you have not already moved on to the next Blog then its time to get the task in hand. Running. I am on a rest day today after running a steady but challenging 18miles yesterday. This is the first serious long run I have undertaken since running the New Forest Marathon almost exactly a Month ago on the 17th of September (It was a bloody disaster by the way-running my first Marathon with a chest infection was always going to hurt).
I am still enjoying the benefits of the fitness that I gained whilst training for the Marathon and after a very relaxed Month (first two weeks of which I did not run at all) I am getting back into a more organised training regime. Well, I will be just as soon as I sit down and write out the training programme. I really must do that tonight!
Yesterdays run was a bit of a first for me and involved doing things completely differently i.e instead of knowing what distance I was going to run and then trying to run it as quickly as possible I ran out from my house for an hour and a half and then made my way back. But more importantly I made a point of following advice I had read from more experienced Ultra runners.....I walked! Thats right! 1 minute out of every ten was spent walking. The idea is to save your self for the distance. I was dreading this but I actually loved it. Obviously the walking slows down your overall pace but it also helped me to tune my self in to how I was running. Quite a nice surprise as I expected to find it frustrating as opposed to productive. Oh yes, I had a light rucksack on as well with warm clothes, water and some music. I have never really fancied running with earphones before but I could not help but remember some of the truly dull recoverey runs I had done as part of my Marathon preparation. hence it came to pass and I have to say I think recent research suggesting you exercise better to music might be right! So, after a little over three hours of running I still wanted make the most of the sunshine and went out on my bike for an hour before having a shower and then binge eating on Roast Beef!

You might be wondering why I am already thinking about training for an event that is over 2 years away. Although it is some way off in the future I want to make sure I do it properly. I previously entered the Marathon Des Sables several years ago shortly after my Daughter arrived when I was still at University. Whilst traning progressed well at first I managed to injure myself long before I even boarded the plane to Morocco. 2009 is the earliest event that I can apply for and so I figured that if I was serious I should use that time to train and gain experience of Ultra Marathons. A brilliant bonus to all this is having over 2 years to raise money for Marie Curie Cancer Care as well.

And so the first Ultra event has been entered, its called the Tring2Town and it is being held on the 27th of January 2007. The start line is perhaps not surprisingly in Tring, Hertfordshire and the finish is 45 Miles down the Grand Union Canal in London Town. Little Venice to be precise.

So, as I sit here with sore legs from yesterday I must log off to write out a traning program that will help ensure success at the end of January.

Details of how you can contribute to Marie Curie Cancer Care (Registered Charity No.207994) through my efforts will be Posted imminently. I am waiting for them to issue me an account and then I will be up and running (pun intended. hilarious). Thanks for all your help so far Karen.