Tequila Mockingbird

Over the passed two weeks there have been a couple of important progressions and significant lessons learnt regarding both training and fundraising.

On the fundraising perspective I ran my first ever fundraising event; a pub quiz. During previous challenges I could simply rely on creating a justgiving page to reach my target but £9,500 requires a bit more creativity. The pub quiz turned out to be a success with approximately 80 people attending raising nearly £700 through the entry money and a raffle. The quiz was won by my friends from Procurement and the best team name was Tequila Mockingbird. It was great that my work Christmas party was at a suitable venue as I used the fact that we spent a lot of money that night to secure a room at the Doggett's Coat and Badge is Southwark for no charge.

What I learnt was how close I came to making a failure out of a success. In future I think I will not leave it to the day of the quiz to write the questions, buy the raffle ticket book or secure prizes for the raffle. Whilst it was a bit stressful with the quiz master dropping out at the last minute it did mean that I could apply a personal touch to proceedings and banter with the audience of friends, family and work colleagues.

Still, I didn't have too much time to get cocky as I only included nine questions in the first round of ten questions, reduced the audience to tears when I mispronounced the Cedar as Saydar [sic] and was challenged that there was more than one tube station that uses the all the vowels within their name (Mansion House, South Ealing and Heathrow Terminal) rather the one that the question claimed. However, all in all, it was a success and I am now up to £2,800 with a couple of more charity events in the coming months: Paris Marathon sweep stake in April and a Wine & Cheese evening in June.

The second thing I learnt over the last two weeks is that my previous blog should have been named "the loneliness of a long distance runner's other half". As I have started to build my training durations I need to be careful that my wife, Becs, doesn't start feeling like a landlady so I have begun to incorporate more of my training into my commute and also getting up earlier to train before work. This should mean I can spend more time at home in the evenings and at the weekend.

During the week 16th - 22nd January I continued to build my training duration by increasing my running distance to 37.5 miles during the week however I was lighter on the swimming duration as I we went away on long weekend on the Gowyer Peninsula in South Wales. It was a great weekend celebrating my father-in-law's 60th birthday and meeting my new niece. It also provided me my third lesson of the week as it allowed me the opportunity to do some running on the beach. Now I know that most of the professionals go somewhere warm or at altitude but my budget winter training camp has confirmed that I need to include some/a lot of beach running in my acclimatization training next year. The fact that my three mile beach run made me feel as tired as I would expect after a 10 mile run has made me fear the 15% of the MdS over sand dunes. Still, its better to know this now rather than finding it out at some point next year.

I have continued to do some more kit research over the last two weeks. Now that I have ordered my back and front packs I turned to my attention to sports watches/heart monitor and turbo trainers. Whilst not directly related to the MdS I am hoping this will improve the quality of my training and also help me spend more time at home. It is quite scary how little I knew a few years ago and how unsophisticated my training was. I was one of them plodders that concentrated on miles of cycling and running or lengths of swimming. I am still in the transition to becoming a training super star but my new Garmin Forerunner 910xt sports watch and heart monitor will improve my training intensity rather than wasted miles. Secondly my B60-R turbo trainer should improve my cycling as most cyclists put their cycle endurance down to indoor cycling far away from traffic lights and other vehicles.

During week 23rd - 29th January I built my long run up to 16 miles, posting a total of 5 hours of running consisting of 30 miles, and 8k of swimming. Included in the 11 hours of training I also did 20 miles of cycling taking my bike to and from Evans for a service. The last lesson of the week was the need for greater bike maintenance as it cost £150 to replace my rear cassette and rusty chain as I didn't oil my bike before putting in mothballs over Christmas. Expensive week all round really, considering I also bought two tickets and hotel for Becs and I for a romantic weekend in Paris when I do the marathon...

One final thought of the week was the amazement I felt about Djokovic's fitness. When I left for my long training run the Nadal-Djokovic final was 1-0 to Nadal and when I got back home 2-2. These guys are superhuman. Whilst I did 11 hours over the week Djokovic did over 11 hours in two matches within three days and I don't have someone that is trying to stop me every step of the way. It also made me feel sorry for Andy Murray. In any other generation he would already have won multiple grand slams events but unfortunately he is up against three of the all time greats.

Next week I will be continuing the build phase of my 2012 training whilst scheduling the sessions around going to watch West Ham away at Ipswich on Tuesday evening, watching my sister's first half marathon and celebrating my Mum's birthday.

TTFN...