The Virtual Runner Running Blog

My wife and daughter are amazing.  They got together and bought me a Garmin Forerunner 405 for my birthday (which isn’t until Nov) and let me have it now!

The 405 is some pretty cool kit and I’m looking forward to giving it a go this weekend on my long run.  I was going to use it this evening for my interval training at the track but it was raining so hard that I didn’t go.  My friend and I decided that we were fairweather-runners and decided to stay in and chill-out instead.

Tomorrow morning and Friday morning I’ll be on the treadmill.  This is mainly because I go at 6am and it’s dark outside at that time so that means I would rather not run the roads around here.  Wed night running club sessions and Sunday long runs are out and about.  Remaining training sessions are at the gym.

I’ve updated my running log (up to 02 October 2009) and I’ve covered a total distance so far of 2529.83km on my virtual run across Canada.  I’ll map out where I am in Canada later on this week and I’ll update the location map as well.

On another note, I’ve been reading my list of blogs lately and I noticed that The Fat Runner has decided to run a half-marathon and is looking for sponsorship in exchange for a listing on his website as advertising space.  Obviously the advertising space won’t make a massive difference to your site (if you’ve got one) but I think it is a worthwile cause to raise money for and I’m also happy to encourage a fellow runner to achieve their goals.  I’m happy that he’s attempting a half marathon and I wish him all the best with his training.  Let’s just hope he keeps blogging and doesn’t be like me with huge gaps in posts!  (sorry)

If you’re interested in sponsoring The Fat Runner or finding out more then you can visit him here:-

http://thefatrunner.blogspot.com/2009/09/half-marathon-madness.html

When it comes to my own ambitions, you probably saw my previous post which was my rejection magazine from the Virgin London Marathon.  I should say my “first” rejection magazine because I’ll probably get others in my lifetime!  Anyway, it doesn’t matter because I have already registered for the Brighton Marathon and I’ve also booked my hotel so I’m all ready.  Just got to do that whole training thing….

It’s getting late now (10:30pm) and I’m sleepy.  I get up a 5:20am every weekday morning and it seems to come quicker every day!  Tomorrow I’m going to do some hill-work and mix it up with a bit of sprinting/intervals as well.

ambitions, canada run progress, London Marathon, non running, training

Ah…. rejection comes in many forms in your life.  In this case, it comes bound and looks very much like a magazine…

London Marathon

I made the decision to register for the inaugural Brighton Marathon on Sunday, 18 April 2010.

I decided that I needed some sort of focus for the future and for training.  Also, the Brighton Marathon promises to reimburse a portion of the entry fee for those runners who have registered for the London Marathon (ballot).  This way, if I don’t get a ballot place for London I’ll still have my first marathon to train for!

I thought it was a fitting 2nd choice because it is Brighton’s 1st marathon and it will be my 1st marathon too!

I even get a lovely t-shirt that tells everyone what I’m training for!

I probably won’t really start focusing on marathon training until around October because that is when I’ll know for sure whether I’ll be running in Brighton or London.

The running is going okay at the moment and I’m still plodding along.  For example, I did the following recently:-

Today – 5.42km at at 05:32 min/km pace (did some weights and cycling as well)

04  Aug 2009 – 10.37km at a 05:47 min/km pace

02 Aug 2009 – 14.00km at a 05:44 min/km pace

28 Jul 2009 – 10.69km at a 05:36 min/km pace

I’m going to update my spreadsheet tonight after I’m done writing this post.  You’ll be able to see my total mileage to date as well as my total mileage covered on my virtual run across Canada.

Take care and happy running, walking, crawling….

London Marathon, marathon training, planned races, training

I’m in the ballot. Late last night the site slowly started to work (I only had to refresh the pages and restart about 6 times) and I managed to enter the ballot for the 2010 VLM.

Now I can relax until October when I’ll find out if I was successful.

London Marathon