10K Run - Training Report #2

After the generally downbeat feeling that came from my first session back in the gym as discussed in Training Report #1, it has come as quite a relief to see the progression that I’ve made since then.

As you know I set myself only three months to go from zero to hero. Three months to force the lumbering mass of lard, who only had to stick his tongue out and whip his clothes off in order to go to a Star Wars convention dressed as Jabba, into running 10 Kilometres around London’s city streets to raise money for Cystic fibrosis. See the page header above for more details.

10Km? 6.2 Miles? Madness.

I was struggling, quite genuinely, to run 1K after Christmas and that is only just over half a mile. 

But I knew I could do better than that because we had pounded 2 miles out of Oxford’s streets last December, so when I crumbled on the treadmill on that first session back I was devastated. Christmas had ruined me. I’d made my declaration of running the 10K on the back of the Santa Run’s success but here I was dry retching in a gym after only 1000 metres, actually I think my first retch was about the 600 metre mark…

I was gutted but I have to say it didn’t cross my mind to give up. Not just because of the shame of it; I’d told my family and friends, I’d told the guy who is running a whole Marathon, I’d told everyone at work and I’d also told the Internet. The main reason I knew I couldn’t go back was because of Cystic Fibrosis. How could I moan about a bit of hard work on a treadmill and just walk away at the first setback when people all over the world are suffering the horrendous effects of this genetic disorder? 

How dare I complain?

Parents lose children. Children lose parents.

This is a little more serious than one fat lad losing face.

People had started sponsoring me, money had been paid. The run MUST happen.

So I kept going and bloody-minded belligerence got me back into Rob the Gym Man’s domain. I’m glad it did.

With just under two months of training left I am excited to say that I am easily half way there. On the treadmill, which is physically much easier to run on than a road but mentally much harder due to the sheer  boredom factor, I have managed to, not only, run 5K but to do it in thirty minutes. Half an hour! This absolutely rocked me – I think those mythical endorphins I’ve always heard fitness freaks bang on about must have kicked in because I leapt off the treadmill and went and kidney punched my running mate Darren to show off. Darren, one time London ABA boxing champion and general all round ‘very hard bastard’, took this very well THANK GOODNESS! I’m not entirely sure he felt it actually, he may not have even realised it was supposed to be a proper punch.

Last but not least I am very excited to report that this very weekend on the 12^th of February – so exactly two months before the big day – I managed to run an actual 5K on an actual road circuit. No fancy schmancy conveyor belt action but genuine pavement pounding. I don’t know how long it took, because three seconds into the run we had to go back and I had to pump up my two helpers’ bike tyres which were flat, and then during the run I had to go back twice when Jamie fell off his bike in the snow, but it wasn’t fast. I’d say it took at least ten minutes more than it does on the treadmill – but that’s a guess, it could have been more

This does not matter though – speed wasn’t the important thing this weekend. I’ve hit a benchmark. 

With two months to go I’ve made it to the half-way point out on the streets.

This is going to happen.

It is!