Strive for Progress not Perfection !

Strive for Progress not Perfection !

A very apt title as time has gone so quickly, I didn't realise that I failed to do my blog last week .... so here's the progress .... the timing isn't perfect !

Another good couple of weeks training wise ... and progress made on weight loss, which has undoubtedly helped me get the times I've been getting recently.

So lets start, almost two weeks ago, a gentle 5 miles recovery run at 8'44" a mile pace, mile long hill involved in this run up past 3M's ... I used to hate that hill, now, its doable in a decent enough time  last year I'd have to walk up the hill !)

Club night on the Wednesday, intervals along Gorseinon cycle track, then on the Friday I did the half marathon run up to the top lake in Felindre again,  weighted back pack natch (for all Gwlad online readers !) but a more sedate pace of 9'19" a mile.

One again work intervened, but on the Wednesday it was time for one of the clubs monthly races ... managed 3.5 miles at a pace of 7'11" !!! Just twelve months ago I was struggling to get under 9 minutes a mile, now here I am hitting just over 22 mins for 5K ... came 17 out of around 50 runners ... again when I started with the club, I was typically towards the bottom 10 runners !

Friday just gone and it was time to get serious, enough of these half marathons, 15.2 miles at a pace of 9'13" per mile ... to hit my target of sub 4 hours for the Amsterdam marathon I need to be hitting 9'09" .... the run included around 1500 feet of elevation gain ... something I wont have to contend with in Amsterdam, so I'm quietly confident of getting #sub4hr !!

Saturday (yes the very next day after Friday !), was the day of the village fete. A chance to raise some money, possibly make some useful connections and run on the treadmill for a while.

Here I am on the treadmill !

 

 

 

Started off thinking I would run for 2 or 3 hours, as I doubted there'd be much interest and I seriously doubted my ability to do any sort of decent distance given that I'd run 15 miles the day before. How wrong I was on both accounts - firstly, my fellow villagers were fantastic, donating a total of £177. Secondly, buoyed by their interest, I kept going for the full 26.2 miles (42.1 Km) in a time of 4 hours 15 minutes .... here's a pic of the treadmill screen !

 

 

 

 

So a total of 42.2 miles in two days ... I was very pleased with the effort over the two days .. in particular the marathon, as it was 9 minutes quicker than my best time over that distance ! Yep, I'd PB's my marathon time on a treadmill ....

 

This got me to thinking, what have I done since my first Marathon in November 2014 ... well, there was London, the Ultra Marathon, and 3 'training' runs over the same distance ... 6 marathon distance runs ( and further ) in 9 months ... I never thought I'd ever be achieving these distances, yet along with such frequency !

 

From a fundraising point its going well, I'm over my negativity from the previous couple of weeks .. a few worthy mentions here ..

 

Kit Sportswear in Ireland (run by a good Port Talbot man of course), for supplying me with my running kit.

 

The Buck Inn for providing a raffle prize for my fundraising evening, a meal for two and a bottle of prosecco

 

Ed Curnow of Yo-Cart for donating a fantastic prize to the same raffle; he has a waffle and frozen yoghurt business. He has given a prize worth around £150, which means he will attend a party or other event with his waffle maker .... you'll be able to eat to your hearts delight !

 

I've also made good progress on the "date in a diary" raffle, where you could win £300 ... I've already sold 51 dates ... just 314 to go !! If you want a chance to win £300, donate £10 on my page HERE and in the text box type in a date you'd like from Jan 1st to Dec 31st .... once I sell the lot, I draw one date and that person wins the cash .. simple !

 

Once again, congratulations for surviving this long ... and remember, your comfort zone is a beautiful place, but nothing ever grows there - experience life !

 

All the best for this week

 

Fatboy !

 

P.S. In the village fete, we hired a pub ... yep an inflatable pub ... and here it is !

 

 

 





Of course it's hard, if it was easy, everyone would do it !

Of course, its hard, its supposed to be hard. If its easy, everyone would do it. Hard is what makes it great !

I eased off on the mileage this week, some short gentle runs, a circuits session and a half marathon training run .... this training malarkey is starting to pay off too.

First, Monday night circuits session in Olchfa Skool sports hall, led by Pilot Light from our running club. 45 second bursts on a number of stations with 15 second recovery. Exercises ranged from weighted lunges, push ups, ab crunches, shuttle runs to a new exercise for me. It was a bit like a burpee, in that you do a squat but once up out of the squat then its a jump over a small hurdle ... they've been christened "Herpes" and for my schoolboy sense of humour, that name kept me entertained when my lungs were crying out for me to stop. Followed up with some yoga type exercises at the end ... I'm about as flexible as a housebrick, so these types of moves don't come easy to me at all .... what looks relatively straight forward can be very painful, kudos to those who manage these week in week out !

Tuesday was spent recovering from Monday, Wednesday however, was a lovely warm day so we decided to hit the beach, Llangennith to be exact, who can resist these views eh ?

It was such a nice day, I managed a gentle 3 miler on the beach, all good practice. In the evening it was club night, which was a sprint session on the field next to Swansea Uni track .. like a billiard table the pitch was. Session was a 10 metre run getting up to speed, 30 metre sprint, focussing on form rather than all out speed and then a 10 metre slow down, followed by a recovery jog of about 150 metres. Of course, when I say the sprint was all about form rather than speed, that was the intention, however, when there's a few middle aged men next to each other the competitive spirit takes over, I think nearly every sprint turned into a race ... really enjoyed it but by god, my hamstrings were still reeling 4 days later ! Session ended with a cool down and more of the yoga type stretches we did on Monday. Thursday saw my youngest daughter, my wife and I embark on a gentle jog through the forest. this was such a nice thing to do, running along side my wife and daughter was a lovely experience. Now, I must say I was very impressed with what my wife, Lou, managed. As many of you will know, she had breast cancer last year, and had to endure chemotherapy, radiotherapy and a bilateral mastectomy .... so its knocked the stuffing out of her. She managed a mile, which may not sound like much but given the amount of treatment she's had I was very impressed with how far she managed.

Work interrupted my training for a couple of days, but on Sunday morning, before my 12 hr night shift, I decided to do a half marathon with a weighted backpack, only 3kg to start with.  I'm thinking the sooner I get used to running with 8-10kg on my back the better. The route was from my house, through the forest, up towards Velindre and then up the hills towards the lakes, all the way up to the top one and then back down home. Now, I decided to use my heart rate monitor as an indicator of  effort rather than just looking at my pace all the time (learning a lesson from my 10k PB from the other week !). Now, it was a nice run and it felt well controlled, a few hills got my heart up to 160bpm but in the main it was around the 145 mark. However, I'd made another schoolboy error in that I hadn't charged my garmin and the battery warning came up just after I turned for home so I had to disconnect the hrm. Obviously I had to have a peak at the pace and it was surprisingly quicker than I had done this route before. In fact, by the time I was hitting 10 miles I could smell blood ... it looked like another PB was on. Prior to this my fastest half marathon was last years Swansea Half in a time of 1 hour 58 mins and 40 ish seconds .... so despite it being a 'gentle training run' I decided to keep the pace going and see what I got. At 12.6 miles in my garmin died, but I knew I'd do the extra 1/2 a mile in the run back home ..... my final time ( allowing for 1/2 mile at the average pace for the whole run) was 1 hour 52 minutes 8 seconds .. I'd smashed the 1/2 marathon PB by over 6 minutes on a very hilly course with 3kg on my back ! This is the elevation profile for the first half of the run, the second half being the same but in reverse !

 

 

I thought I'd add this photo just because its a good one !

 

 

 

 

A quieter week on the fundraising front again, which is now starting to concern me ... however, that's my problem ... wrote about 40 emails to local businesses and now waiting to hear from them, just 2 or 3 would be good ! On a much more positive note, my mother in law continues to add her considerable amount of help, this time managing to secure two hampers of loreal products that I will be either be raffling or auctioning off ... here they are, one womens and one mens hamper !

 

 

Also, I've stolen another fundraising idea from one of my club members. I'm selling dates in a dairy for £10 each, once I've sold them all, I will pull a date from the hat and the winner will get £300 ! How does that sound .. a good way to help sponsor me and with a chance of getting a considerable amount of money back - lets see how it goes !

 

Again, congratualtions on getting this far, here's the obligatory plug for the fundraising page, click me, you know it makes sense

 

Final thought for the week - one day, you'll wake up and there wont be any more time to do the things you've always wanted - do it now

 

 

 

Fatboy

Relentless Forward Progress

Another great week training wise .. I'm slowly getting into the 'zone' !

Monday was my MdS training day with Rory Coleman (12 time finisher of the MdS & coached Ranulph Fiennes to completing this year) ... I figured if he can't guide me down the correct path then no one can ! I thoroughly enjoyed they time I spent with him and learnt so much about the correct kit to take .. more importantly what not to take and what not to do also. I'd urge anyone competing for the first time to spend time with him, it'll save you money and pain. Most valuable lesson of the day was how to tape my toes to avoid blisters .... tried it later in the week and it worked ! I should add that it was a 1:1 session .... once all the advice on kit had been provided off we went on a 26.2 mile run.

Now, I should admit I was very doubtful that I'd do the distance as the longest run I'd done since the ultra in May was a 13.1 miler about a month ago ... so hardly had the miles in my legs ... but what a enjoyable run it was ... not quick, as it was all about getting the pace right for out in the race, so it took somewhere around 5hrs 15 mins, maybe a bit longer ! Ran from near Sophia Gardens down to Barry and back .... managed it and my calfs felt better for it as opposed to worse that I thought they would !Home and walked the dogs a few miles just to help recovery and the same the next day.

Wednesday night was club night with 3M's - lovely session hosted by Alyson, despite the weather. Then along came Saturday - I was fundraising in M&P's open day .... I was going to attempt a 26.2 miler on a treadmill, the furthest I had ever run on a treadmill prior to then was 10K ! Must say a big thanks to all who gave so generously, especially this guy .... made the trip down from Rhos just to say hi .. legend !

 

 

And here's one of me in action too ! The keen eyed among you may realise that I'm wearing a cycling top not a running top .. NSPCC sent me that by mistake, but I couldn't not wear something with the name on when running for them ... it was warm (no where near sahara temperatures though !) ... no air flow through the top, I was gently perspiring, and had a little bit of a glow about me.

 

 

 

Now, in the past two weeks I've been trying to shed a few pounds, as advised by Mr MdS ... so I've cut out bread, potatoes, in fact anything white from my diet .. and obviously chocolate etc.... I've been very surprised by how quickly the weight has come down, from 14st 2lbs to 13st 6lbs this afternoon ! here's the proof  (picture quality not great )! I'd imagine running 66 miles in the previous 7 days helped a bit too.

 





Fatboys Fantastic Funders;

I have to say a massive thank you to everyone who donated so generously on Saturday at M&P's Motorcycle open day .... haven't had a great deal of time for anything else this week !

Again, if there are any businesses who would be open to sponsoring some of my equipment then I would love to hear from you.

Once again, well done on reaching the end, another plug click here to donate please !

Thought for today "the body wont achieve what the mind don't believe"

You know it makes sense

Fatboy

Gaining some momentum !

As the title suggests, it's been a good week on all fronts, even my calf muscles !

Fundraising; its been a great week, and I feel a lot of progress has been made, but there's still a long way to go. I've carried on mailing businesses asking for sponsorship, help in fundraising, raffle prizes etc .... below is a list of what will now be known as Fat Boys Fantastic Funders !

Fat Boys' Fantastic Funders

1. Mark Colling of M & P Motorcycles for kindly allowing me to pitch my treadmill up outside his business on the 8th August. They're holding an open day there, its well worth the visit to view all the Harley Davidsons, they look awesome.

2. Advanced Physio Nutrition for being my physio for the duration of my training, well worth considering a visit if you've got an injury, in need of a sports massage or are looking to lose weight and / or improve your fitness ! http://physioandnutrition.co.uk/services/

3. Richard Clark, Personal trainer - for donating 10 of his books for my raffle
4. Simply Gym - for donating 3 month membership and a family pass for the LC2.
5. Candyfloss cakes for agreeing to bake a cake
6. Kathy M Harris for donating 2 reiki sessions - http://katherinemharris.me/
7. Neil Collier from Collier Photography for donating a prize for the raffle.
8. Fallstreak consulting - for their sponsorship of my shorts !
9. Finally, a massive thank you to my mother in law, Mary Gillat, for contacting Manchester United and getting some officially signed merchandise from them ( and possibly Man City too)

Ok, that's the obligatory thanks for all above (I'm sure there's more, if I've missed any, I'll add them next week ) ...

Training; Followed up last weeks little 4 miler with another one just to make sure calf was ok ... it wasn't, twinged a bit going up a hill and that meant rest and ice for another 3 days. Wednesday saw my clubs (3M Road Runners Gorseinon) monthly grand prix race. This month it was a 10K along the cycle path between Gowerton and Clyne. Wasn't very confident going into it, especially as I'd just arrived straight from a 12 hour day shift ! On top of that my garmin failed to find a signal in time for the start so I was racing naked in my opinion ..... if only I'd known ! Legs felt good so I upped the pace until I caught up with someone who I knew was a lot faster than me. I hung onto his heels on the way down the gentle hill and all the way back up ... I could tell I was going faster than I usually do. Anyhow, we turn off the track to Dunvant Rugby Club and there's about 100m to the finish .... I thought I'd try to up the pace to see if I could take him .. well, I'm not sure where it came from but I ended up with a sprint finish which saw me overtake him and another runner in front of him ... I also took 2 mins off my 10K PB and all on a non-flat course ! RESULT !!
   There's a lesson there that I need to remember, run on feel not by numbers. If my garmin had been working, I'd have seen the pace, thought "SHIT! I need to slow down, I'll never carry this pace all the way through to the end" .... must remember that for future runs. Finished the week with a gently 6.5 miler in the forest where I live. So weekly total miles low at just over 16.5 but not bad considering the state my legs were in at the start of the week. Got a slow 26 miler on Monday ... with a backpack on, looking forward to it ;-) It's with Rory Coleman, 12 time MdS finisher, who coached and ran with Sir Ranulph Fiennes this year ...  looking forward to it.

Another plug for my fundraising page, just click here !

Finally, an ex work mate of mine, who took the step to finish work and set up his own business in the fitness industry sent me this ... never have I felt those words to be truer !

That's all for this week and congratulations for getting to the end !

You know it makes sense ....

Fat Boy !