Hill running

Hills. Many runners avoid them like a plague. Unfortunately or rather fortunately I don't have that privilege as I live in one of the hilliest parts of London. The area around Forest Hill, Sydenham and Dulwich isn't even what you could describe as a bit bumpy, much of the land around here rises up to about 350 feet above sea level. And it's not just the height of the hills but their character, long drawn out seemingly never-ending stretches of road. As a consequence even a regular run will involve some sort of climb.

As I said many runners dread hills but over the years I've grown to love them. There is a technique to running hills and once you have the hang of it a hill can be turned to your advantage. Indeed, my personal best for a half marathon (1:36) was on one of hilliest races in the country, Hastings.

Previously in my blog I've refereed to Kenyan Hill training, a type of long distance hill training that focuses on building endurance and strength through long hill repetitions. As I've said before I absolutely swear by these as after a few reps you get a fairly good approximation of what you're going to feel like around the 21 mile mark.

I recently came across this very good website that details a range of different training techniques for runners to try. Brian Mac's website is a detailed account of precisely what the advantages are of a range of different training programs and well worth reading.

BrianMac.co.uk

Why I am running the London Marathon for Action Duchenne

In the past I have ran races for a number of charities for various reasons. In 2006 I ran for The Antony Nolan trust, paying for a golden bond entry into the London Marathon, I have also ran for Unicef and other cancer charities. 

Choosing to run for a charity should be a very carefully considered decision. In many cases the only way to get into some major city marathons is via a guaranteed place similar to the golden bond system operated by the London Marathon. Indeed, when I first ran for a charity I had some misgivings, what was my motivation? Was I only running for a charity because I wanted to get into the Marathon or did I really believe in what the charity was doing and wanted to support it?

I've always found the fund raising aspect to these events difficult, it's something I'm not naturally predisposed to doing so I feel it's necessary to give some background to why I have selected Action Duchenne as my charity for this years Virgin London Marathon. 

When I returned to London after living in Germany for nearly two years, I decided that I wanted to become a teacher. I felt though, that I wanted first to gain some experience working in a school so I worked through a temping agency, eventually found myself working at Brent Knoll School in Sydenham, South East London. Brent Knoll is a special educational needs school though the pupils there were generally classed as having mild learning disorders (MLD) that would have impaired their progress in a mainstream school. In fact some of the students in the school didn't actually have MLD's at all, but required one-to-one support due to being incapacitated in some way. 

My job at Brent Knoll was to provide one-to-one learning support to a lad called Adam who was affected by Duchenne's muscular dystrophy, a degenerative disease where the sufferer gradually becomes less and less able to move themselves. Adam required one-to-one class room assistance but also required hydro and physiotherapy  as well as occupational therapy. 

I had never worked so closely with a single student before and not surprisingly establishing a good relationship with Adam, his teachers and his family was essential. In doing so, I gained an insight into what it was like, the challenges faced by his family, and Adam himself. At the end of the day I went home, but Adam's family carried on. 

We all worked as hard as we could to make Adam's school and home life as comfortable as possible. I joined the school when Adam was at the end of his year 8 and continued to work with him throughout his year 9. It was a time when I saw Adams condition worsen as he grew and as he did so he became more aware of what was happening. 

Adam was a highly intelligent and outgoing person, with a terrific sense of humor and like me, an avid Charlton Athletic supporter. The School was fortunate enough to have been donated a couple of season tickets by Charlton which meant that Adam and sometimes myself could go to watch a match. It was the Premiership years for Charlton so there were no shortage of decent games to watch and come Monday morning we would spend some time analysing, celebrating or commiserating each other on the Addicks performances. It was through our shared love of Charlton that we bonded and got to know each other. The school and my life outside of it became interlinked, indeed, while at Brent Knoll School I also met my future wife. 

My time at Brent Knoll came to an end. I had been offered a place at Goldsmiths University on their teacher training course but I was also offered a teaching job in Japan. I decided to take the Japanese job and soon after leaving Brent Knoll I found myself in Fukuoka, Japan. With hindsight going to Japan was a mistake, within 10 months I returned to London due to a family member having a terminal illness and while I briefly rejoined Brent Knoll School I had difficulties coping with a number of things going on in my life. Adam himself had not changed and had a new one-to-one assistant. I had to reapply for my Goldsmiths place then had to wait two years before I could start my course. 

Duchenne Muscular dystrophy (DMD) is a terrible condition. Sufferers degenerate, losing muscle strength and so rarely live into their 20's. Sufferers struggle to fight off infectious diseases and it was about this time last year, perhaps a bit earlier, that I discovered that Adam had died suddenly and unexpectedly on Christmas Eve 2010.  

There are always stories of men with DMD living into their 20's, it is possible, so you always hope that the person you know will be one of those but it's always at the back of your mind that they may not make it that far. I miss my time with Adam, I sit in the North Upper at Charlton and there hasn't been a match in the last year where I don't look over to where he used to sit, either in the North West quadrant or by the tunnel besides the pitch half expecting to see him there. 

I consider it an honor and a privilege to have worked with and shared a small part of Adam's life.  

Last year I had my place on the Marathon but following an injury during my training build up I decided to withdraw. With my 2011 place deferred for a year I decided very quickly to contact Action Duchenne and let them know I wanted raise some money for them. I have been struggling through the early part of my training with the normal cold's and flu we all get this time of the year but my motivation both for the London Marathon and my fundraising has been inspired by Adam's life. 

Those of you that wish to do so can sponsor me here.

One more time

So with just over 180 days to go my London marathon training has started the way my last London marathon ended, with an injury. In fact it was the ghost of my old and recurring Perifomis injury has once again been my undoing to the extent that I am considering the 2012 race my last attempt at the 26 mile distance.

The frustration of injury is all the more bewildering as it seems to only occur during an event. This time it was the wonderful Royal Parks Foundation Half Marathon in London. Of all the half marathons I've ran I would rate this race in the top five if only for the truly spectacular route and the Village fayre type atmosphere which is strange as the route takes you through some of the most famous land marks in the World.

During my training for this event I ran regularly, harder and faster than I planned to during the race. My plan for the RPF half was to maintain a nice steady pace, just under 9 minutes per mile and may be add some speed towards the end and get in some time around 1:50ish. Alas it wasn't to be, I started feeling that familiar tightness in my lower back as early as 7 miles. At 8 miles I decided to stretch it which seemed to work until mile ten where I met a short downhill section of the course, the impact of my heel hitting the ground finished me off with a pain so intense that I literally went blind for a second.  I found that when I walked I could do so relatively painlessly so I decided to walk the remainder of the course.

I suppose, considering the injury, finishing in 2 hours 34 minutes wasn't too bad but if you watch the video footage of me crossing the finishing line you will clearly see me swearing in frustration. Why was it that I could quite happily run 10 miles in training or a very hilly 6 miles faster and harder than in a half marathon and suffer an injury so early?

The mystery of the injury should actually put me off running but I guess if I were prone to giving up I wouldn't be running marathons in the first place. The initial frustration I felt has subsided and been replaced with a desire to sort this thing out. Next week I will be heading to the sports injury clinic for a bio-mechanical gait analysis. As the injury is re-occurring I hope and wonder if the problem might be something to do with the way I run. I suspect there is an underlying cause to the injury and one I am determined to get the bottom of.

In the mean time I have been on the anti-inflammatory drugs and doing some stretching. Next week I will start some low impact exercise and core strengthening exercises. Apart from all of that the min thing I will be doing is hoping for the best.  

Running technology

Every now and again I like to leave the mp3 player, gps and even my stopwatch at home, put on my kit and just go out for a run. I think it's sometimes easy to forget that it wasn't so long ago that the only piece of technology runners used to rely on was a stopwatch and a decent pair of shoes. These days gps tracking devices are so readily available that we have become somewhat dependent on them.  


Now don't get me wrong, I think the technology available to runners these day is tremendous and benefits novice runners like myself enormously. I use my smart phone, a HTC desire and the running  sportstracklive application which allows me to measure my run and get immediate feedback regarding my pace and distance. It's also possible to link a heart rate monitor to the application and measure cadence breathing rates and optimise calorie burn calculations. This kind of technology used to only be available to professional sports coaches and was limited to elite athletes but now is's often free or a cheap download. For me the principle advantage to this kind of application is that it measure my route so I have a much clearer idea of whether I am hitting my mileage targets every week. I also confess to having taken a phone call while running on more than one occasion and why not, what a marvelous advantage it is to be able to contact a friend or a loved one at anytime. What if there were an emergency? 


I only started running in 2004 but since then the increase in availability of sports tracking type software can be matched by the lower cost of the devices that run them. And it's not just electronic technology, back in 2004 running gels and sports nutrition drinks were limited to lucozade and er.. that was about it. With the running gels come the belts to hold them so much so that many runners line up at the start of a half marathon looking like warriors about to head to the front line into battle against some bizarre enemy. Strapped up and bristling with technology; wireless, bluetooth, gps tracking systems, carbo-loaded to excess. 


Do we really need all this technology though? What if by some cruel twist of fate all the satellites fell from the sky and burned up in the atmosphere? What if all sports drinks were prohibited by law and we runners were forced into blue poweraid speakeasies? I'm sure life would go on and we would go back to measuring our routes with bicycles before we went out for our runs. 


The development of technology in any human endevour is governed by the push/pull forces of want or need and I suppose that the technology available to runners falls into both of those categories. If I were to be perfectly honest I suspect that I don't really need any of the technology available. There is a simple pleasure in running, it's simplicity as a sport if part of it's attraction and yet we try as hard as we can to complicate it as far as we can. I don't think the technology has improved my running one bit but it has made life a little easier for me during my race build-up. 


So it is that every once in a while I leave all of the paraphernalia that increasingly accompanies the sport these days at home just go out for a run. When I do these kind of runs I tend to go exploring, as if the lack of technology has somehow liberated me, I run down random streets making things up as I go along.


This is in fact what I used to do when I first started running, living in Germany at the time I often had no idea where I was anyway. Forget about the training, forget about your average pace, bpm, cadence, calorie burn rate, carbo-loading, glycogen conversion, VTO max, playlists, audiobooks, radio, hands free   wireless high speed internet access. Forget all of that, put on your running shoes, get out the door and admire the scenery, feel the cool, crisp autumnal air under chrome blue sky along the banks of the river. All we do, after all, is just put one foot in front of the other anyway. 

Returning to Marathon running; blogging and training for 2012

While out for my run yesterday the thought crossed my mind that I haven't written a blog post for a very long time. This is a shame because as a novice runner my journey in this sport is still ongoing and I still feel as though I have much to share. The past year has been eventful for so many reasons. 


Finding the time to run has been a bit of a struggle over the past year. I've been training to become a teacher, a particularly intensive course which was physically and mentally demanding so much so I found running has slipped down my list of priorities. I would run in short bursts of activity, over school holidays and weekends but trying to squeeze a run into my daily routine of school and college assignments was difficult. 

Another consequence of working in a school is disease. Working with large numbers of children I was constantly exposed to a lot of viruses and it was a virus that spelled the end of my running ambitions for 2011 suffering as I did from a seemingly unshakable infection for three weeks I found it very difficult to train to anywhere near the level I believed necessary to complete a marathon. I decided to withdraw from the 2011 London Marathon, it was a disappointing moment but I wasn't prepared to risk a similar experience to the one I had in 2010. After finishing the 2010 race I was determined to do better, my training was compromised by injury that time and I wasn't prepared to run again unless I felt prepared.


The consequence of Marathon withdrawal was a differed place, in fact as soon as I withdrew I knew I had made the right decision. All of a sudden I had an entire year of training ahead of me but not just training for the Virgin London Marathon (VLM)  but the London Marathon 2012. 


I started to think about periodization, breaking down my training year into sections or phases focusing on particular aspects to my training. I knew I needed to improve my fitness and my first target was quite simply to get fit enough to start training for an endurance event again. I also wanted to build some endurance training into my running before the end of the year, I also wanted to start my Marathon build-up slightly earlier, training over 16 weeks rather than my usual 12 week training program. 


So with those targets in mind I started with a four week program of short running with mixed pace runs, interval training and strides. I can tell you that I hate fast runs, I find them extremely difficult but I was determined to get my running legs back. During those two weeks I didn't do any running over 25 minutes, concentrating on speed and strength rather than endurance. I have been getting used to this type of running and while I have started to do some longer runs the idea of speed work has become less abhorrent.


I'm now entering the second phase of my training as I prepare for the Royal Parks Half Marathon in October. I've decided to set myself a fairly modest target for this race with a target finishing time of sub 1:50. My reasoning for this is that I'm keeping everything in perspective. The Royal parks race will be my 8th half marathon but I intend to run Hastings in March 2012 as I prepare for the VLM and that's where I intend to attack my personal best time. For the moment the Royal Parks race is a great way to build some endurance into my training, build some strength into my legs and give me a great indication as to where I am with my running. 


The next phase will be the all important marathon build up including the Hastings half marathon and at least a couple of 10km races. I've decided to extend my training, beginning at the start of December, this will give me a few weeks to recover from the half marathon training and time to do some more speed and strength work before the final push. 

Missing out on London 2011 may well be a blessing in disguise.

Running the Virgin London Marathon 2010

And so, after all those months of training race day was finally upon me. I always knew that after picking up an injury so late on in my training build up that I'd lost a significant amount of fitness but I had no idea how far behind I was until I got half way through the this years London marathon. For me the race became a different run altogether, a test of endurance, mental as much as physical far greater than I originally anticipated.

The day began with clouded skies and a heavy downpour, something that came as a welcome surprise to all of us gathering on Blackheath Common after all the predictions of record high temperatures and burning hot sunshine. If the forecasters had been right the weather would have been a marathon runners worst nightmare. But the weather spirits were kind to us, giving us just enough rain to keep it cool without being too damp for the start of the race.

I joined my start group in pen 3 and immediately felt out of place. Looking at the the runners around me I could see they were more toned and more focused than myself. I knew I was way too far forward in the start and I was going to get in the way of the other runners.

I had decided to not try and run an 8 minute mile pace, that would have been stupid, so my plan was to set off and settle as quickly as possible into a comfortable pace closer to 8:20/mile and as the race started I very quickly found a relatively decent pace to go along with. I passed the first mile mark at 8 minutes 24, way over my original 3:30 target pace but close enough to a 3:35 finish to make it up over the second half of the race if I felt capable of doing so. That was my plan, to stay within reach of beating my personal best without setting off too quickly and doing myself in.

I continued, enjoying the support and the occasion, even through those early stages the crowds lining the street are quite vocal and larger that I remembered from my previous race. I kind of forgot about my running for a bit, just drifting along quite happily and I crossed the three mile mark just 40 seconds off the pace, I felt quite comfortable.

As I ran through Charlton I was careful to not get too confident, I passed the 5 mile marker more quickly than I ought to have done reducing my time deficit to only 14 seconds so I decided to ease off over the next mile or so completing the first 10km in an unspectacular but reasonable 52 minutes. I passed the famous Cutty Sark, still boarded up and no more than a pile of scaffolding at the moment, turning into Deptford and heading towards Surrey Quays my pace still a good 40 second off but well within reach. 40 seconds down is not too bad, I had just passed the eight mile marker and I still felt comfortable.

The first sign of trouble came around mile 10. I became aware of a tightness in my right calf muscle, something that originally appeared during my training and my physio suggested was a sign that I was in some way over-compensating for the injury I'd incurred on my left side. I immediately slowed down, even considering stopping to stretch it but deciding against it I carried on, trying to stay relaxed, trying to keep my rhythm going. The tightness in my calf stayed about the same but I was aware that had really slowed down, I was now a good minute and a half off my pace but I knew that it was better to slow down at that stage in the race rather than suffer later on.

The crowds along Jamaica road were amazing much larger that I remembered from my previous London Marathon. All the way from Rotherhithe and Bemondsey to Tower Bridge, every inch of space lining the route was taken. The noise was incredible.

Over Tower bridge I ran, crossing that halfway point at a stately 1 hour 55 minutes. I comforted myself that this was a similar time I crossed the halfway point as I did the last time I ran the London marathon but the ache on my calf muscle grew worse and I knew as I approached the 14th mile that something was very wrong and it wasn't going to get better. Again, I slowed down.

It was like a chain reaction, what started as a dull ache became a sharp pressure in my Achilles. Then I started to develop a pain in my piriformis muscle, everything was starting to feel like it was closing up. It was becoming hard to concentrate on anything other than the growing pain, I was stiffening up, losing my form.

It was about at that point that I passed the water station manned by the children from the school I work in. Just seeing them gave me such a lift, I completely forgot about the pain for a minute or two. There's nothing like seeing people you know by the side of the course, friends, colleagues, family, close ones to give you support. Years after a race like the marathon, when you close your eyes, you can still see the look on their faces the moment when they see you pass by, a look of sheer joy and elation.

Just after I left Narrow Street and tuned right into the underground roundabout as I entered The Isle of Dogs. There were a few runners by the side of the road stretching their calf muscles, I decided to try and do the same. The stretch seemed to do some good but not for long, soon the pain came back, soon I stopped again, another stretch. I manages to make it to Mudchute where I stopped by a medic and had an emergency sports massage. Again this pit stop served to alleviate the pain slightly but as I passed Cross harbour my Piriformis decided to join the shut down party, producing a pain not unlike being injected with an inappropriately large, rusty, six inch nail inserted very slowly and under great pressure into my lower back. Just at that point I looked at my watch and three hours passed by. My race was over.

I was in a strange state of mind; on the one hand all was lost, there was no way I was going to finish the race in less that four hours and mentally I was shot. I had to think really hard and really fast, I had to very quickly set myself a new target. On the other hand there's something to be said for the sporting cliché, "dig deep". I started shouting at myself, motivating myself, 9 miles to go, I can run 9 miles, easy, that's less than the run home from work I was doing during my training all winter. Take each mile one at a time, beak each mile down into sections. I just had to finish, that would be my target, I wanted that finishers medal more than anything in the world, I visualised the medal hanging around my neck, holding the medal, crossing the finish line, that was my motivation

By the time I rounded Canery Warf I could only run for about two minutes before my leg stopped working, I don't mind admitting it but I wanted to do nothing more than stop. Just as I turned to head towards Billingsgate there was a Saint John's medical centre, There were a couple of runners who had already decided enough was enough, sitting there in the warm sunshine receiving a massage, a cold drink in hand. Perhaps it was my mind playing tricks on me but I'm sure they were listening to some relaxing music. It looked like heaven.

And that is pretty much how the rest of my race went on, the pain grew increasingly debilitating, making it only possible to run for shorter and shorter periods. I counted from one to a hundred, running for a hundred seconds, walking for a hundred seconds. I counted down the miles, shouting the number out loud, I just had to keep going, I tried walking faster, continuing to push myself as hard as I possibly could. I was constantly being passed by other runners, but there were others suffering like myself. i managed to strike up a few conversations as I went along.

If there was any advantage to be found in the pain I was forcing myself to go through, it was that I really got to appreciate the enormity of the crowd, the support was absolutely huge. Every now and again people would see me walking, "COME ON RICHARD", "KEEP GOING! NOT FAR TO GO NOW, YOU'RE DOING GREAT!" The spectators really did help me through it.

I passed under the 25 mile maker, along The Embankment, the Houses of Parliament in view, people screaming my name, verbally pushing me along. I was determined to run across the finish line. I hobbled onto bird cage walk, I saw a man collapsed by the side of the road, what a place to collapse I thought, virtually in sight of the finish.

I rounded onto The Mall and there it was, the end. I really was in a state of complete agony, I could barely walk let alone run but I forced one more jog out of me, I made it over the line and nearly fell over. I'd done it, ironically I very nearly walked straight past the woman handing out the medals.

I decided as soon as I crossed the finish line that I wouldn't even think about how the race had gone, I was just so pleased to have finished. As a spectator over the years I had seen runners in my position and now I know exactly what they were going through.

I was hours off my race target time finally crossing the line with a time of 5:02. This time though, I was more proud of my performance than when I got my personal best. It was, in a way, what marathon running is all about. It takes a lot of guts to run a marathon, anyone that runs this race will at some point want to stop. Part of running a marathon is dealing with the voices inside that want you to give up, I had to convince myself that giving up wasn't an option.

At the end of the race, just like the last time I ran the marathon, just like the last time I ran a half marathon or just like the last time I ran any other race, as soon as I crossed the finish line there was only one thought going through my mind...

"I can do better than that".

See you next year London.

Preparation: practice preparing to prepare.

With 10 days to go before the night before the race I've been practising my final moments before I leave the house that morning.

Now, I know I may be leaving myself open to accusations of obsessive compulsive disorder, but when I wake up the morning of a race the last thing I want to be thinking about is anything other than the race.

This last week I've been waking up at 7:30 am every day, the time I will be getting out of bed on April the 25th. I've been making my pre-race breakfast of bananas and porridge with loads of honey and eating it at

the exact time I'll be eating on

race morning. I've been making sure I stretch for at least 20 minutes, paying particular attention to those areas that have caused me problems, calf muscles and piriformis and ITB.

This is a very personal kind of build up, every runner is different. For me, race morning is one of the most exciting moments, it's easy to get carried away and forget something. When I ran the Sheffield half marathon back in 2005, I managed to leave my timing chip behind in Germany. So, over the years I've perfected my pre-race into a kind of ritual, here are some of the things I do in the weeks before a race like the London marathon before I even get out of the front door:

• Wake up at the time I will wake up on race morning.
• Eat my pre-race breakfast. Doing this also means that you not only don't have to worry about what you are going to eat, it also means that there will be no surprises for my digestive system on the day.
• Wear what I will wear on race day. This is probably one of the most important things I could so. I have only just discovered that the shorts I was planning on wearing cause dreadful and uncomfortable chafing. Consequently I will revert to the shorts I have worn for my two previous marathons.
• Have a warm shower and stretch. A warm shower is something I have only recently added to my training and race preparation, it relaxes the muscles after a long night in bed, a nice way to wake up and makes stretching more comfortable.
• Start running at 9:45 AM. That's the time the marathon will start so that's the time I leave the house for my last taper runs.
• Carbo load. Yep, my favourite part of any race preparation, eating. I start carbo loading three days before the race and actually lay off of the carbs a bit the evening before. I stop eating at 8:30 and go to bed at 9 o'clock.

The morning of the race is pure ritual. It's almost like going to church, there are certain things I have to do and I do them in the same order:

• The night before the race I make sure I have pinned my race number to my shirt and laid out my kit and everything I'll need before I leave the house. I fit my timing chip (so I don't leave it behind, doh!) and put everything I need before and after the race in my kit bag.
• Get an early night.
• A new pair of socks. I always start a race in a new pair of socks.
• Plasters on the nipples. Seriously, if this is your first marathon, make sure you have plasters on your nipples.
• Imodium. I take imodium before a race, just in case. The last thing I want is to have to go to the toilet at 19 miles.
• Drink a little but often. Basically hydration is one of the hardest things to get right, particularly pre-race. I keep a small glass of water beside my bed and as soon as I wake up I have a drink. I probably drink about 250ml before I leave the house, sipping a carbohydrate sports drink as I make my way to the start. This just seems to work for me.
• Vasaline or some other lubricant parts of your body you know will chafe.

These are some of the things I do. I usually have a good 20 minute stretch before I leave and then have a gentle warm up and stretch at the start. The last thing I do is have a moment of meditation, visualisation, when I mentally prepare for the points in the race I know I will have to work harder than on other parts of the course.

I'd imagine that there are some aspects to my own build up that many runners will find familiar but as I say, pre-race preparation is a very personal thing my only suggestion would be that you practice your race morning, practice your preparation.

Taper time

A tapier, not a taper!

The taper is the part of the training schedule most runners really look forward to. The basic idea of a taper is top allow your body to recover sufficiently in order to run the race. A punishing program consisting in most cases of many hundreds of miles of training has prepared the body for the race to the point of exhaustion, the three weeks before the race are a gradual slowing down, reducing the intensity of training by half each week up until race day.

My taper was complicated by having to completely stop for 10 days due to picking up an injury, but I had scheduled a 13 mile run for last Sunday and I felt happy enough with my recovery to give it a go. I ran most of the 13 miles at or very close to my original planned race pace of 8 minutes per mile, I really felt that I needed to test myself a little bit, sitting around doing nothing can be frustrating to say the least and I had to see if my Achilles would hold up. You might think that this was a risky thing to do but if I hadn't felt fit enough to run I wouldn't have done the 13 miles anyway. I chose to include the first seven miles of the London Marathon route into my run, again familiarising myself with the slowest part of the course. I eventually finished my run in a pretty decent time of 1 hour 47 minutes, something that did my confidence no end of good. Apart from feeling a little stiffer than usual, I ran the whole route quite comfortably finding my rhythm and quietly starting to form my final strategy for race day.

That run was completed two weeks before race day, this coming Sunday my long run will consist of a 6 mile run, that's compared to my longest run of 22 miles. My total mileage for this week will be just under 20 miles, my mileage for the whole of next week will be 10 miles. If you think that during the height of my training I was doing a 10 mile run on my way home for work, you'll get an idea of just how easy the next 10 days will be by comparison.

As with most things to do with running there is something of an art to tapering before a big race but in all programs the goal is to feel fresh and ready for the race. There a few things you should do and things you shouldn't do, these are commonly referred to TAPER TRAPS. Generally you're aiming to relax, take a step back from pressurising yourself to hit those mileage or pace targets.

One thing I have already become aware of is a desperate need for high carbohydrate foods, I'm craving pasta, potatoes and rice. Having spent so much time working on getting my weight down I don't really want to put the pounds back on again, not this early anyway. The next thing to look out for, especially next week, will be something called recovery rebound, when I'll feel a desperate need to go out and run. This is basically exactly what I want, but I will have resist the temptation to go out and run 15 miles at 7 minutes a mile!

Warm weather training

That's right, your eyes do not deceive you, WARM weather training. It doesn't seem that long ago I was complaining about the sub-zero temperatures, in fact, at one point in January the weather was so bad I couldn't run for a week. Sheet ice inches thick covered just about every pavement in South East London.

We Brits are famed for our obsession with the weather but I don't think anyone could argue that the last four months have not been easy for us lot training for the London marathon. I've ran through sub-zero snow covered streets, pouring rain so bad that it left standing water a foot deep in some places along the River Thames, and today, something completely different... hot sunshine and high humidity.

Not that I'm complaining, one of my worries about the up coming marathon has always been that the later than usual start (a week later than last years) left the event vulnerable to warm or even hot weather.

This morning I woke up and did my usual preparation of porridge, bananas, stretching and circuits. While watching the weather forecast I realised that today was going to be a warm one, "hmmmmm", thinks I, "..here's an opportunity to get some warm weather running in".

Now, I've ran a warm marathon before and I can tell you, I did not enjoy it, not one bit; and that was after months of training through an unspeakably hot German summer in Cologne. Running in warm weather takes some getting used to and after months of training though the coldest winter to hit Europe for 70 years, any opportunity to run in the sun has to be taken.

I actually waited until about one o'clock, the sun was shining in a clear blue sky, the heat had built up to 19 Celsius in the shade, making the in the sun temperature well into the mid-twenties. After about 3 miles of running I really started to flag, I started getting worried that if these conditions were to be repeated on the 25th, I wouldn't make it. After four miles I stopped and had a stretch, I started to relax, drinking regularly, pacing myself nicely. I realised that I had gone off too fast, running close to 7:50/ mile pace, I eased off to around 8:10/mile pace and all of a sudden I really started to enjoy it.

I ran around Peckham Rye Common three times (about 5 miles), enjoying the sun beating down on me, the sight of people soaking up the warm spring sunshine, dog walkers, builders and other runners all out there, I just relaxed and got on with it.

I'm planning a 13 mile run on Sunday, apparently it's going to cool off a bit, it will be sunny but not nearly as hot as it was today, shame really, I would really enjoy another thirteen miles just like today.

London Marathon: 12 interesting facts

When it comes to Marathon running you can't read anything in any running related literature without coming across a statistic, usually in the first paragraph. So, in the tradition of Marathon writing, I thought I would include as many statistics as I can find here for your reference.

1. Over the course of a marathon the average runner will lose 2.5 litres of water.

2. Over 26.2 miles runners will take 30 000 steps, over three times their body weight is transferred though their heel every time is hits the ground.

3. The current course record holder for the London marathon is Sammy Wanjiru with a time of 2 hours, five minutes and ten seconds. The current male World record holder is Haile Gabresalassie with a time of 2:03:59 set in Berlin, 2008.

4. The slowest marathon finisher was Major Phil Packer who completed the course with a time of 13 days, a remarkable time considering Packer lost his legs in Afghanistan only starting to use crutches a month before the race.

5. The fastest marathon completed dressed as a vegetable was recorded in 2009 by Robert Protheno who crossed the finish line dressed as a large carrot in 3:34:55.

6. Over it's history, enough water has been handed out to runners to fill 150 Olympic sized swimming pools!

7. The last British winner of the London marathon was Paula Radcliffe who broke the World record with a time of 2:15:25. However, the last British man to win was Eamonn Martin way back in 1993 who was not actually a professional athlete at the time.

8. 1 in every 67 414 London marathon runners dies. This is comparable with many daily activities.

9. The course distance of 26 miles 385 yards is not in fact, the distance from Marathon to Athens in Greece but was the distance ran at the London Olympics in 1908 when Italian, Dorando, famously barely crossed the line but was subsequently disqualified after receiving assistance from the clerk of the course. The Gold medal was awarded to the second placed American, Johnny Hayes. Promoters and bookies set up a subsequent series of rematches but insisted the race be run over the exact distance ran in London. The International Olympic committee sanction the distance the following year and ever since then the World knows the Marathon as the distance set in London, not Greece.

10. The first Womens Marathon race did not exist as an Olympic event until 1984 in Los Angeles. Back in 1981 the winner of the men's race received 1375 pounds while the winner of the women's race received a wrist watch. Fortunately, there is a bit more equality these days with both the male and the female winners receiving the same prize money of 36000 pounds.

11. The human body can only store approximately 2000 calories in the form of glycogen which is converted from carbohydrates and stored in the liver and muscles. Most runners run out of glycogen between the 18 and 20 mile mark. This is commonly referred to as "hitting the wall".

12. The most common profession amongst marathon runners is teaching.