Monday 28 February 2011

Uh oh

Oh dear, guess what I have done......I have entered the Hunter Valley Marathon. Eep! Its scary but mostly exciting. Its not till 17th July so I have plenty of time to train and I think it will be the challenge I need to make sure I get up in the mornings.

It cost $87 which I think is a little pricey but I am happy to pay it as I think I will be well looked after and get a t-shirt at the end! I was tempted to get a hoodie but it was $49 and I don't really need it.

The website says that the 1/2 marathon is 60% flat, 25% rolling hills and 15% hilly, that doesn't sound too bad does it? I have heard stories about it being a bit hilly but also of others setting pbs on it so I am not scared. I will try and do a little hill training though.

The Hunter Valley is about 2 1/2 hour drive from our house so it is technically possible to drive up in the morning but I would have to leave the house at about 4am. Ideally I would love to stay there and make a weekend of it but that will bump up the price. I know a cute little cottage about 15mins from the start which would be great but it sleeps 4 people so I would like to get two others in on the trip. Well its a long way off yet and if I don't get on with my training the logistics won't matter anyway.

With that said I was out on a run this morning. I came up with the idea in the pub on Saturday night to put all of our names in the house on a white board. The night before we tick if we are going to get up for a run or swim and then the other house members are allowed to do anything they can to get you up. Does that make sense? I think it is the fear of someone barging into your room at 6am that scares you into getting up anyway.
At the moment we don't have the white board so had to make do with a piece of paper, still it worked and Michael-Clease, Neil and I went out for a 5km run.

Training schedule #1

So I found this training schedule on a website, many of them are for 10/12 weeks and I wanted a longer one so I could start training straight away. As you can see this one is for 20 weeks which is perfect. It was in miles and so I have converted it and rounded the numbers as it seemed silly to run 17.7km. It seems pretty do able and the fact there is cross training days means I can fit in cycling and swimming. I'm sure I will not stick to it religiously especially as I have already done 5km today instead of 3.2km. I also need to work in some speed and hill sessions. What do you think? Maybe ever Wednesday can alternate between speed and hill work? Can I handle 5km of hill work? I guess we shall see.
Chubby Katie.x