Road to Comrades 2020

Although I'm still busy tweaking the plan for my training, I'm counting this week as my first with 14 weeks (now 13) until Manchester Marathon and 24 weeks to Comrades. The first part of my training will be similar to Marathon training, but there's just a slightly different focus - the long runs will be longer and slower, and there'll be more hills; Strength and Conditioning will focus on preparing my legs for the impact of all the downhills at Comrades as well as building strength for the uphills and of course on injury prevention to get a consistent block of training in. I was still off work at the start of the week, in that lovely lazy Twixmas period, but the less I do the less I want to do! We were supposed to go to Bristol from Monday to Wednesday (NYD) but as Guy was not feeling well, we stayed at home on Monday travelling on Tuesday, which meant I was free to go to club on Monday and do the club run, albeit at a steady 10 minute mile pace.  Wednesday was New Y...

Follow my blog with Bloglovin This review was originally published on ' The Runner's Bookshelf ' Facebook Group. I didn’t quite get round to writing reviews of the previous two books I read; ‘The Rise of the Ultra-Runners’ by Adharanand Finn and ‘Running Outside the Comfort Zone’ by Susan Lacke, but since they both had a Comrades link I thought I’d do three mini-reviews having just finished ‘Comrades Marathon; The Ultimate Human Race’ by John Cameron-Dow. As I may have mentioned, I’ve entered Comrades 2020 so my reading choices are reflecting my current preoccupation with preparing myself mentally, if not yet physically for my biggest ever challenge. Having read Finn’s previous two fantastic running books, Rise of the Ultra Runners seemed to be timed to perfection for me on its release. As with the earlier books it’s a compelling read and I found the author even more relatable in this book than in his previous writing. I rarely think I’d re-read a book but honestly I...

We woke up to perfect, if a little bit chilly, conditions on Sunday for the Abingdon Marathon. I'd had a great night's sleep in a local hotel, where me and Guy had stayed on Saturday night, a short drive from the start line on the athletics track at Tilsley Park. I felt okay, just the usual pre-marathon nerves and last minute checking that I had everything I needed. We bumped into fellow Bournville Harrier, John McKeon at the car park and also said a quick hello to another fellow Tealster, Conor Murphy on his way to the baggage tent. With under 1000 runners, it wasn't a large crowd and as a race organised by local running clubs including Abingdon AC, it had a competitive feeling around the start area. As I lined up with Guy on the track I looked around me; perhaps it was the 5-hour cut-off, or the lack of the bells and whistles of some of the bigger city marathons but there was definitely a different kind of atmosphere here; more club vests than usual and apart from a S...