Training week 2. T-22 weeks till London Marathon

Second week completed! Yay - the smaller runs are getting a lot easier, although today did push me quite a bit. However, assuming I haven't picked up any injuries from it, I think it went quite well.

Here are the details of my long run I did today, from a great site called EveryTrail

Trip Story
Schedule is a 90 min jog/walk

I tried to average a slowish jog of about 10 mins per mile so that I could last the time. I started a bit quicker and later decided to run 2 sets of 4 miles, with a 1 mile walk in the middle. You can see this from the speed stats quite clearly :o) Here are my detailed stats...

Mile1: 9:13 mins
Mile2: 10:13 mins
Mile3: 10:03 mins
Mile4: 9:15 mins
Mile5: 14:57 mins (walk)
Mile6: 9:23 mins
Mile7: 9:10 mins
Mile8: 9:46 mins
Mile9: 9:33 mins

9 mile jog 23/11

Widget powered by EveryTrail: GPS Geotagging

Here is the up-to-date schedule.

Thanks to everyone who has sponsored me so far... it really is making it easier to train knowing I have so much support! If you want to support me, either check out the just giving widget on this page or go here. £850 so far, at the time of writing! Wooooo :o)

Training week 1. T-23 weeks till London Marathon

First week in is gonna be a tricky one, although looking down the line of my schedule, probably not the hardest one.

You can find my week's work in my online schedule here

My new gadget I'm using is awesome! So useful for working out when to go for jog to walk and back to jog at specific distances. I can imagine it will be equally good for jog/sprint interval training later too, etc.

I'm trying out some new energy bars and recovery fuel drinks to see if they're any good. Gave me lots of energy for my 5 miler, although that might just have been down to the uber-carbs I had the night before.

My appetite has gone through the roof just in a week also! I'm trying to eat carbs and fruit when hungry, also drinking squash and water much more.

I've lost just over 3 lbs this week which is probs half weight and half water as I'm still rehydrating after my longer run.

Early Birthday Pressie!

Liz gave me an early birthday pressie today (She's great ;o) ) as I'm now starting my marathon training. Well almost started ;o) Update will be at the end of the week! I got a Garmin Forerunner 201. To track my distances, times, speeds etc. I can also later download all info from the forerunner to my laptop and analyse my runs to understand where I'm doing badly, when I could do with energy gels/snacks etc. Could be very interesting. I'm really pleased with it :) I gave liz an idea of a watch (cheap digital one) so I could track any laptimes I do, but this will give me lots of fun things to play with and look at. One good thing also is the ability to download the route I have done and overlay onto google maps or the like to see on a map my travels :) Just for fun!

Right... I've got a 20min jog to go out and do while you lot are sitting about relaxing in the warm! This is very hard work and deserves lots of money! Thanks so much to everyone who has donated so far! I'm up to £719 now! Still a long way to go though!

For those who haven't sponsored me yet... stop being cheap! I'm really putting myself out for this, so go here now while you don't have an excuse! :P

London Marathon training schedule.

So, my first marathon run is next year. I'm aiming to get under 4 hours, but for that I will need a good training scheme. I've knocked one up from a runners world website. They typically do 14 week schedules, so I've combined the first 8 weeks of the "First marathon" schedule, and tagged the full 4hr->3.5hr marathon schedule on the end with a couple of weeks duplicated in case of injury etc.

Here is the schedule.

I'll keep it updated with my actual distances ran and injuries picked up on the way... I'm currently nursing a groin injury which should hopefully be gone by next week when I start. I also like the fact that my first day is rest :D

I still want to buy some running trainers (will go shopping this weekend) and maybe a pair of undershorts. There are some around that support all the muscles including the groin, or adductor (no smut please) and also there humerously names groin straps I could get... suggestions welcome. Quite expensive... maybe Santa will treat me :)

And for anyone who wants to sponsor me :) click here!

London Marathon!

Woohoo!!!

I've got a place in the London Marathon 2009! :o)

Please Please Please sponsor me to run 26 miles... It's a very stupid thing for me to do, but I'm doing it for a very good cause. I'm running for Ronald Macdonald House Charity (RMHC), who provide accommodation for parents with children in hospital. This is a very important charity to me as they helped my brother and sister-in-law stay close to their lovely daughter Nicole on two occasions for weeks at a time when she was very poorly in hospital. Nicole has since made a full recovery and is a darling little Niece :o) So I'm really proud to run on behalf of RMHC and would love for people to donate to them, even if it's just a few of pounds if you think I've run enough to deserve a beer, then put it towards the charity.

You can sponsor me online here -> http://www.justgiving.com/simonmaple

If you can spare anything at all, I'd really be grateful!

Thaaaaanks :D

Upside down dogs!

I've sent this photo...



To this website... http://upsidedowndogs.com/

Let's see if it gets in :o)

DIY done and DIY todo

We've been very busy with lots of DIY recently and have been thinking about other things that could be done next!

We've taken out the toilet and sink from the downstairs loo, put up new coving, prepped the walls with loads of plaster, filler and lots of sanding, put new isolation valves on the pipes (compression joints) ripped up the new floor, layed a new ceramic floor, put plaster coving up (one of the most irritating jobs I've ever undertaken as the walls are by no means square :oS) and painted lots of white paint everywhere as an undercoat. Liz's Dad, Terry, was great help with the DIY when he and Liz's Mum, Linda, came over to stay for a few days. Linda did lots of gardening and weeding and stuff with Liz when us men were grunting and doing manly things like plumbing.

So, that's what We've done so far. We still need to give another undercoat, especially over the new plaster, followed by the actual colour coat! tbd, install the new loo and sink, with plumbing and taps, new mirror, and wall tiles by the sink, then some other bits and bobs like glossing and stuff.

I thought today about a possible project: To convert the back of the garage to a fun bit of space. The bit I'm talking about is about 3m x 2.5m... As you can see from the detailed drawing below, It will contain, shelves to but beers on, a beer fridge, a pool table, a few stools, a dart board and a pool table light thing. It's gonna be fun :o) Now I just need to convince Liz... hmmm I'll tell her about the beer fridge first I think :oD

Went to South Africa

Big Spider...

Silverstone and guests

This weekend me and my brother, Gav, went to silverstone to watch some F3 and GT racing... awesome! It was a really great weekend. We managed to even walk out onto the pit wall and the grid! Here are a couple of photos to sum the weekend up...





Guests

We had some guests round recently... they're very rude. They stay in the loft and run around keeping us up at night... we've had to move rooms a couple of nights when they're noisy. I left a trap for them but they seem to have taken the food and forgot to shut the door behind them :( I'll reset it again tonight... Looks like they may not be squirrels after all, possibly mice?

N.B.New energy to post on blog = new template for blog.

Has it been *that* long?

So, I was perusing other blogs using their RSS feeds and I thought - crap, no one has blogged, that's rubbish. I actually quite enjoy reading other people's blogs when I get the chance, especially Joe and Adam's as they're 13 and write some random and funny things that make me laugh.

Then I looked at my blog... well, I haven't posted for a couple of weeks so I thought I'd write an update... Looking down the previous posts I saw some humerous ones about me trying to lose weight... peaks and troughs... i'm currently in a trough although my belleh looks like a peak ;) I also saw a really nice post about the holiday me and Liz had last year which really made me smile :D

Any how, just thought I'd let anyone reading know I'm still alive! Since the last post, I'm still engaged :) Bought a lovely house (4 bedroom - blimey!) with Liz, which we're currently doing up, got two new additions to the family... Liam who is my lovely new Nephew and a brother for Nicole to play with! and Toby! our lovely dog :o) Lab X Springer. Here's a pic of Toby after I slapped my dusty hand on him after sanding a wall down... as you do.



Also just came back from a holiday with Liz and her Family to Norfolk, boating on the broads. Was great fun. Went with Liz, her parents, Hazel, Peter, Joe and Adam, and of course Toby!