First run with the Manchester Harriers

In the last few weeks, I've been ramping up the running, and I'm aiming to do about 3 serious runs a week between now and the run. If all goes to plan, that will be about 350-odd training miles, and should put me in a fairly decent state to get round the course without dying. Maybe.

Along the way, being the techy-geek that I am, I'm going to keep track of the distances I've done, what kind of training I'm doing, and pretty graphs of how close to a coronary I'm getting.

To kick off, I went for my first ever run with the Manchester YMCA Harriers this evening, which you can see graphs of here.

In the cold and the dark and the rain, we ran down a hill very slowly, then back up again very very quickly. Six times. Apparently this is good for me.

I'm feeling exhausted but good, though already sore - I can tell it's gonna be worse tomorrow. Luckily, I've a few days off to recover, until Sunday when I'm heading off with them for another 10-12 miles or so. Why am I doing this again?

Aaaand we're off

Right then! A Snickers! 42.195 kilometers. 26 miles and 385 yards. Twice as far as I've ever run before. Bit scared. Big numbers.

My last big run was the Great North Run in October last year, which is a half-marathon. Shortly afterwards, I was in the pub with Tom (housemate) and Alex (housemate's missus/unofficial housemate).

The timing of this pub visit is important. It was just long enough after the GNR that our legs didn't hurt any more, but still soon enough after the training that we felt in pretty good shape.

These ideal mental conditions, plus a significant quantity of booze, led to the genius decision that - having done a semi-marathon - we should have a go at a proper one.

Somehow, this idea survived the next morning's hangover.

So - on the 23rd May, the three of us are heading up to Edinburgh, and are doing our first marathon. That's 16 weeks from this coming Sunday.