Test and Challenge Blog 1

26 Aug Test and Challenge Blog 1

Here’s the deal.

I’m 62 and have agreed to run a half-marathon for charity in early September. I haven’t run one in 35 years (but ran many before then), I haven’t been running regularly for a few years and it is early June so I have less than three months to prepare. So how do I go about it?

Be a man with a plan. It’s easy to be gung-ho and just start running willy-nilly without a clear goal in sight. Without a schedule it is hard to plan and track your progress. As the old adage goes – fail to plan, plan to fail.

The basics are easy. I’ve got a good pair of running shoes and plenty of sports shirts, shorts and socks. I’ve got a small drinks bottle for shorter runs but need to buy a larger one to push on with my distances.

The major thing is to devise a realistic and manageable schedule I can stick to.

Unlike when I was in my 20s when I ran lots of marathons, half-marathons and 10k races during the 1980s running boom, I don’t have the time or energy to train several times a week or to push harder to run faster.

With less than three months to prepare, it is going to be a plod which is fine. I’m doing it for a purpose – to raise funds to support mental projects in Worcestershire run by Worcester Community Trust. Find out more on my JustGiving page.

Rather than focus on distance, I’ve decided to concentrate on time.

My broad target is two hours – or 120 minutes – which seems a feasible time to run 13.1 miles at just over nine minutes a mile. A brisk walk if all else fails at a doable 12-14 minutes a mile will get me there if I put a shift in at around eight to eight-and-a-half minutes a mile for as many miles as possible – though hopefully for the whole distance.

With such a short space of time to prepare I need to build up the intensity for the challenge steadily so I’m opting on a simple progression of 40 minutes per month for June, July and August with smaller milestones in between.

Like the journey of a thousand miles beginning with a single step, my first few runs were the hardest beginning with a 10-minute jog around the block which was punctuated with stops to gasp for air which left me exhausted and heavy legged. Worse still, my left eye wept constantly – a trapped tear duct, I think – which made running uncomfortable as I constantly wiped away the tears.

The easy thing would have been to give up and put it down to being a bad idea but a problem is a solution in disguise.

Tissues or handkerchiefs were no good, so I cut a flannel in half which I soaked in water and slipped into the hem of my shorts for retrieval to softly wipe away the tears when needed. Yes, it might cost a few seconds every several minutes or so but that gradually eased as I ran longer distances.

Those first few weeks were the toughest. My plan was to run 15 minutes in the first 10 days, 20 minutes after two weeks, 30 mins after three weeks then 40 by week four.

It didn’t quite go to plan. Few things do. I was a week late hitting the 40 minutes target in my longer weekend run in early July. So far so good – but July would prove to be a month of conversing challenges.

This Test & Challenge blog is part of my Blokey Blog series. Check out the next blog in this series and find out more about Blokey Blog.

For details of why I am taking part in the Worcester City Runs as part of the Worcestershire Ambassadors team to support mental health projects across the region and to make a donation visit my Just Giving page.

Chris Green