Charlie meets Seb!

(I wrote most of this post in the week of 26th Sep - so I thought I'd better post it!)

4 weeks to the Lausanne Marathon.
2 weeks to the Phedippidations World Half Marathon Challenge (at Henley on Thames)

Week 1 - 40.
Week 2 - 39
Week 3 - 36
Week 4 - 31
Week 5 - 19
Week 6 - 26
Week 7 - 61 (!!!!) Long run 1 - 16 miles.
Week 8 - 24
Week 9 - 50 Long run 2 - 18 miles
Week 10 - 50
Week 11 - 10
Week 12 - 40 Race 13.1
Week 13 - 5 Ooops!
Week 14 - 38 Long run 12.5 miles

6 week average 32 miles. The bare minimum!

My weight is around 85 kgs.

The achilles tendonitis remains but I am still running! I had to shelve the 20 miler and review the strategy. I am assuming that this long run will leave me with significant soreness and I will need some complete rest afterwards - so it will now be run sometime between October 2 and 4, just under 3 weeks before the race in Lausanne. This will then be my only big week before the race. It feels like I am tapering already, but I have to ensure I get to the start line before worrying about my finishing time. Hopefully I can also run a 14-16 miler still this week as well.

So much for planning....
Last week's running was fairly good really, despite being again wedged in between a pretty exhausing work schedule. The overall mileage was down on what I wanted, but my long run of 12.5 miles was quite pleasing in a bizarre way. I had intended to run no more than 7 miles, expecting achilles soreness to set in - but despite wearing my "problem" Mizuno shoes this simply didn't happen and I just kept adding loops to lengthen the distance. What wasn't too clever was not taking a drink - two de-hydrating hours took their toll by the end.

At the weekend I worked at the Windsor Half Marathon, and squeezed in an early morning 6 miler through the deer park, splashing through the dew, avoiding the deer and even cruising down the long walk and through the half marathon finish. I must run this race next year as the setting and traffic free route are just great.

Later in the day something pretty special happened. Working on our family run speciality coffee bar as part of the catering set-up we often serve the officials and marshalls once the race has got under way. On this note we made a cup of tea for the guy who started the race, one Lord Sebastian Newbold Coe, and I was able to demand he autograph one of our menus because of the influence he had on my running " career". He also dropped some change in our collection pot for the Ugandan Orphans - I always knew he was the good guy and Ovett was the bad guy. He still runs daily when he can and he looked almost as fit as he did in the eighties. I bet he could break three hours for the marathon now if he put his mind to it. He is a little more than one year younger then me.

I feel that I can finish this marathon if I am not too ambitious about the time. A sub 4 hour finish may be beyond me, but we'll let the 20 miler decide this for me - if I can do it in a comfortable 9:30 pace then maybe I can be a little more ambitious in Lausanne.