Five months until N. Dorset Village

The North Dorset Village Marathon:

http://www.ndvm.co.uk/marathon.php

Not the best-known marathon but it's the highest-rated one I've ever seen on the Runner's World UK site (98% overall score):

http://www.runnersworld.co.uk/events/ratingsall.asp?v=2&ugn=8276

People think it's great and I expect that it will be. I signed up a few days ago, my race number is 145. It's on 05 May 2013, five months away, on a bank holiday weekend so my family and I can spend a couple of nights at a hotel near the race and have a little vacation.

I've decided against Bungay, but I am planning on doing the Kent Roadrunner Marathon on 01 June. This will give me four weeks to recover from N. Dorset, and a second chance to run sub-3:15, in order to qualify for London 2014.

Next Spring

Well, the 18 Nov. Luton Marathon is full so I won't be running that. But I've found a couple of semi-local Spring 2013 marathons that look good, three weeks apart: Bungay (14 April) and North Dorset Village (5 May). Am now planning to run those over others I was considering, like Manchester (28 April), Stratford-upon-Avon (28 April) and Prague (12 May). Am also still considering Edinburgh (26 May, three weeks after N. Dorset) or Stockholm (01 June). I think I could handle three marathons in 6-7 weeks, although haven't ever done anything like that before, have always left at least 5-6 months between them.

May end up deciding to just run either Bungay or N. Dorset, and the latter sounds better. I've heard such rave reviews about it, although people like Bungay too. N. Dorset sounds better in terms of PB potential. Maybe I'll do N. Dorset and then either Edinburgh or Stockholm.

Race report: 2012 Abingdon Marathon

Ran this race yesterday and did much better than expected (3:15:33). Missed qualifying for London 2014 by 33 seconds, so that's disappointing, but not so bad considering that I thought I would be in worse shape for this than I was for London six months ago; turns out I beat my London time by almost five minutes. I did not think I had much of a shot at 3:15 yesterday, so I'm happy I came as close as I did. The race course and organization were both very good and I would certainly run this race again.

I finished strong yesterday and feel great today. No injuries and almost no soreness. I think I've gotten much better about pacing myself and about avoiding misery towards the end of the race. I really enjoyed this marathon, and that makes me want to do more of them, sooner rather than later. I'm seriously thinking about entering Luton, which is in four weeks. At the end of this race I felt more like an experienced marathoner, like running a marathon is not such a big deal anymore. And I mean that in a good way. I'm much more comfortable with running them now than I've ever been, and regard it as a more enjoyable and less stressful experience.

Race report: 2012 Wycombe Half Marathon

Ran this today for the third time in four years and it was great. First pretty nice day we've had around London in what seems like weeks. My time was 1:32:37, better than I ran it in 2009 but slower than 2010. I seem to be on track for a sub-3:15 Abingdon marathon in three months, which would qualify me for London 2014. Hoping for a sub-3:10 in Abingdon though. Did not exhaust myself and had some energy left to sprint and overtake some people in the home stretch. I feel like this is the first time in a race that I've had something left in the tank so that I could really finish strong. I take that as a good sign. Was proud of my son Charles who ran the 1.5-mile fun run again. There was a man at the race bearing the Olympic torch (London Olympics starts in less than two weeks), and in the photo below he stands by as my son is interviewed before the race.

Race report: 2012 London Marathon

I ran this race yesterday. It went fine, my time of 3:20 was about what I expected and it was a fun experience. Beautiful weather, sunny, no rain. I was hampered by spasms/cramps in my calves in and after the 19th mile, and this limited by pace. Of my four lifetime marathons this was my second slowest, and it was 15 minutes slower than Edinburgh nearly two years ago, but given my injuries and limited training over the past year and a half I think 3:20 was about the best I could have done. Abingdon is in six months and hopefully I'll be a good bit closer to my Edinburgh time by then.

Nine weeks until taper for London

The London marathon is in 12 weeks, which gives me nine weeks to build up training before the taper. Training is going OK but not great. I'm up to 18 miles on long runs but not as fast as I'd hoped. I'm thinking a sub 3:00 is unrealistic, but a sub 3:15 is plausible. A sub 3:15 would allow me to qualify for London 2013, assuming "good for age" requirements are the same as they were for this year's race.

Five months to go

Things have been looking up. Have continued to battle frequent injuries but am finding ways to get around them. Have reduced my mileage a lot. I used to always run five days a week, but over the past two months I've only been running 2-3 times a week (max. 23 miles per week), yet I've continued to improve in speed and long run mileage. It seems like two days resting may be just as beneficial as two days training. The reason for the sharp weekly mileage reduction has been weird things going on with my left knee. Hardly any pain but "crunchiness", popping noises. My mileage reduction was an effort to avoid making it become something worse. The condition seems to be improving gradually. But the positive by-product of this pseudo-injury has been my discovery that by running less often, I may be able to avoid injury without sacrificing gains in performance.

It's also helped that I've found some nice minimalist trail shoes, the pictured New Balance MT101's. I bought them in Virginia this summer and have been really, really happy with them. Truly minimalist, light and flexible, but the plates in their soles make rock bruises unlikely when running on trails. On asphalt I've been continuing to use the great Mizuno Wave Universe 3's.

Current performance level indicators: last Sunday, 5 miles at 6:30/mile; this Sunday (today), 13 miles at 7:06/mile. With five months to go until the London Marathon, I'm still aiming for < 3 hours.