Week 3 update and Sponsored Silence details

Training has really kicked in this week. Since last Sunday I've done a TOTAL of around 37 miles, broken down as follows

• Monday - Long slow run - 11.8 miles in 105 minutes (slow pace)round the towpaths and side-roads of Egham, Laleham and Staines

• Wednesday - Interval training - 5 sets of 5 minutes at hard pace, up and down the A30 bypass. (I typically look for a long section of footpath or towpath that doesn't require stopping or changing direction for interval sessions). Total of 3.5 miles

• Thursday - Marathon pace run - 6 miles round Staines

• Saturday - back to Bedfont Lakes for parkrun in extremely muddy conditions with the dog in tow. parkrun is always 5km, or 3.125 miles.

• Sunday - Long slow run - 12.5 miles round Bushy Park

Typically I wouldn't have done a long run on the Monday, but that was driven by personal commitments last weekend.

Overall, it's so far so good. Early days yet of course, but my long runs are going very well and I'm starting to develop some confidence about going way beyond 13.1 miles...which is the furthest I've done so far!


Sponsored Silence

The next big fundraising milestone is my Sponsored Silence. This is a real left-field idea that hopefully will generate some interest and buzz, not least due to my habit of never voluntarily shutting up for more than 5 minutes normally. The Ground rules are as follows

• Starts 8am on Thurs Feb 14th
• Finishes 10am on Sunday Feb 16th
• Full day at work Friday
• Beers down the pub after work
• parkun Saturday morning (where I am Run Director!)
• No verbal communication allowed
• Electronic (email, twitter, text etc) communication permitted
• Goading and wind-ups expected
• 1 hour of silence requires £25 sponsorship
• Mention the Silence in the Comments when sponsoring

Updates also on the FB Event page here



BTW - current status of the fundraising is £302, or 15% of the target amount. Not a bad start, but a long way to go :-)

The blog begins...

OK - first blog post, so here goes.

I've created this blog to post regular updates on my training and fundraising for the London Marathon in April - so expect to see plenty of talk about mileage, pacing, parkrun, long runs, running gear, my mental state, fear of injuries etc etc - plus appeals for more sponsorship

But first things first - some background

1. Why am I running a marathon?
       
I started running more seriously about 5 years, and progressed to 5k, 10k and half-marathon fairly quickly. I always said though that 13.1 miles was my limit, as I felt that my body wouldn't manage any further. However I started to come round to the idea after the Wokingham half-marathon last year where I smashed my PB, felt very comfortable through the race and felt no aches and pains afterwards. Suddenly I realised that maybe I could do the full 26.2......and my wife encouraged may saying, correctly, "you'll always want to scratch that itch"


2. Who am I raising money for?

I need to raise a minimum of £2,000 for Missing People - https://www.missingpeople.org.uk/ - I'll do a blog post later on why they're a worthy charity :)

3. How do I donate?

Go here - http://www.justgiving.com/Rory-Murphy1

4. Any interesting fundraising ideas?

Well - I'm doing a Sponsored Silence in a few weeks. 8am Friday 14th until 10am Sunday 16th. 50 hrs of silence. £25 buys an hour of silence...and if you know me, that's some sacrifice! More detailed info to follow

5. Started training yet?

I started my marathon focussed program 2 weeks ago, and so far I have logged a total of 43 miles.....20 in the first week and 23 in the second. My runs are a mixture of interval runs, a marathon paced run, parkruns and a long slow (slower than marathon pace) run on the Sunday ideally. Again...lots more info to come on this.

OK - that's enough for a first post. I'll keep all my supporters (assuming I get some) updated on here but also on Facebook and twitter (@bogotabandit2)