And it's back on

So the marathon training has not been going exactly to plan, but at least it's still been moving, albeit very slowly. I went for a run outdoors today which is unusual as I've been favouring the indoor treadmill run recently and strangely enough I quite enjoyed it. I decided on a route that I had been on about a year ago and remember starting off quite slowly and almost turning back. This time though it was really quite different. The first couple of miles went quite quickly and I was confident when hitting mile 4. This new found confidence meant that I had time to plan an extension to my run, just a couple of miles mind.

Unfortunately, my legs started feeling it after the 6 mile mark and by the time I arrived home, after 8.6 miles, they were definitely feeling heavier. On saying this, I think another run on Friday is called for but of a smaller distance and faster pace all ready for another 8.6 miler at the weekend. I know it's not too long now till the London Marathon but I'm still confident about completing it in a good(ish) time. I wonder how The Old Hand is getting on.

On a slightly different note, I had a phone call from the charity I'm running for and felt quite embarrassed when he asked how far I had run so far. That's the sort of encouragement I need to get back out there.

Off to bed now for me.

See you soon.

Wannabe

Gun-ho and kissing the guns!

Well Mr Wannabe you really have been pushing yourself and managed to do over 2012 press ups. I can not believe you have done over a thousand in the last 4 days. Super human effort. I suppose you are now going to attack the squat thrusts with the same vigour and gun-ho attitude? But please think about the marathon and training for that. It is not far away and if you want to get under your target time you need to get organised, motivated and structured with your running.

I promise this is the last time I'll mentioned this and maybe I'm banging on about this so much because I'm still not allowed to run and once again didn't get in to the London marathon. Anway another reason I will stop mentioning this lack of training is that the less training you and the old hand do the more you'll damage your bodies, therefore the longer to recover and more time out of action you'll have allowing me to catch up for lost time.

So carry on boys with your press-ups and squats! You'll be great at the marathon, no problem at all, your legs will be fine - the cheering crowd will get you around. Think positively the more time it takes you to complete it means more total time towards your 2012 minute goal!

"Come play with me if you must this game of ghosts."

mmmmmmmmm don't really know how to answer this. Am I really
evil or just showing the guile of an injured animal that is also Mr Competitive.
I'm more shocked by Mr Mellow himself being so competitive. Originally I was
thinking I'm going to get to a target number of sit ups and stick to that total
all day everyday to get to the target, but then the young punk starts bashing
out 302 in a day! - just wrong. So, my body is not quite firing on all cylinders but
my mind is. I thought it was time to start playing some games of the mind to
see if he'd crack.

Being a veteran of two ironmans, just incase I've not mentioned this, I realise I need a strong focused mind as well as body that would get me around. The mind, if anything, is far more important that the legs and blocking negative thoughts get you to the end and not have 6% body fat and physically super fit but a weak mind.

I just thought I'd have some fun and play some games with the wannabe. It does remind me of how Chris McCormack (who’d been on the Ironman circuit for years) aka the guru was chased down by Andreas Raelert in Kona Ironman World Champs in 2010. The young *wannabe* pulled next to the guru after chasing him down all day. 2 miles to go, after 138.2 miles of racing, the guru starts playing his mind games. The wannabe cracks and the guru goes off running into the sunset and becomes World Champ again.

McCormack is numbr 4 - You'll have to read the book to see wat he says to Raelert

Meanwhile the wannabe has to try a new tactic to win. So 2011 comes and the wannabe is hot favourite as the guru is no longer there but up pops another Aussie and beats him as well. SO
maybe what I’m saying is just be careful *wannabe* don’t focus all your attention on me. Look behind your other shoulder as well as the old hand might be sneaking up!

Link to their battle:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r64XLZ_Zv6Y

As for me well I’m just on damage limitations and trying to get as many points as I can before I'm allowed to run and cycle hard. I want to be able to see the *wannabe* in the distance. I also want to win this game we have. I can assure all our followers and readers we are friends and we will never fall out over this.

To prove a point I’ll lend either of you the Chris McCormack book ‘I’m Here to WIN’. Worth a read.

Oh yeah as for the quote at the top it's from Joe Simpson, a climber now author. Him of 'Touching the Void' fame.

Some Thoughts Of The Past Week

Another week has past and it is time to look back on what has been learnt. Probably the most notable piece of learning is the fact that "The Guru" can be crafty and really quite mean. In order to explain this further I feel I must explain the second most notable piece of learning, me being quite competitive. This competitive nature of mine only comes out in certain circumstances and is more obvious when I feel I am in with a chance of winning, otherwise I can appear quite laid back. After studying the points system and current allocation of points I realised that at the rate I'm going, which isn't that fast, I could be way out of reach by the time "The Guru's" knee has heeled. For this reason I stepped up the sit-ups, star-jumps, press-ups & squat-thrusts even to a point where I would do a quick 20 press-ups while waiting for the photocopying. Just as in chess, I was calculating points a few moves in advance. Through my calculations I had it all worked out. And this is where the story of "The Guru" comes into play...

It's been a bit of an unwritten/unsaid rule that we log our exercises as we complete them, or at the very least at the end of the day. This is done either through our Twitter account, @2do2012in2012, a phone app or GoogleDocs. At the end of one particularly productive and exhausting day for me my phone informs me of someone writing on our Twitter account. It was "The Guru" stating he had just completed an unusually high amount of activity. My chess brain went back into action and decided I needed to do even more press-ups & squat-thrusts. To say my body was aching the next day is an understatement. Now then, the part which makes "The Guru" so evil is the fact that it was all made up. He just knew I would do even more!

The final piece of learning has been handed to me by "The Guru" and "The Old Hand". The former is recovering from a dislocated knee and the latter has had various niggling injuries. The learning they've sent my way is to always train in any time available, no matter how short a time it is. So, this last week I've only completed one run and I know another person from work has been training religiously for the London Marathon. This will be my third marathon and I want to prove that I can not only still do it but do it in under 4hrs30. I'm hoping my competitive nature will kick in soon and get me through the training.

These have been my thoughts of the week.

The Wannabe (better than I am)

A New Poll

With the first poll, "Who will be the first to train and receive the 2012 second milestone", not correctly choosing the right answer (60% chose Roy but Mark was actually the first to train, albeit a little drunk)

 

I thought it was time for another. But what to choose from... we could have a poll on who will be first to train in Feb, but that would be too similar to the last. Therefore, seeing as though this is a blog, let's have a poll to see whose blog post can get the most comments from different people.

Quite simply, this poll is open open till Sunday the 19th February. All blog posts count but the post with the most comments by different people wins. I wonder how many people will get to read this and how interesting the posts will get.