The Only Way is Essex...

Well, the majority of the weekend was spent in Essex, notorious for fake tan, big hair and mastering the art of the vajazzle. It seems quite distant to how the week started...

After last Sunday's personal best half marathon and birthday beers, Monday was a self-induced recovery day. Still, Tuesday made up for it in terms of excitement and general pride. A quick 920 metres in the pool before work was followed up with a tour around the Olympic Park in the afternoon. Whilst they have a bit of work to do with the landscaping, all the venues are ready. When you think back to shots from Beijing and Delhi before the last Olympics and Commonwealth Games respectively, the build up has been pretty low key on incident, which is encouraging.

Personally, I don't care if the venues aren't as spectacular as Beijing as they have really thought about legacy: the sub-power station that will power the new post code, cleaned out the River Lea; they have created an impressively large new park and a few temporary buildings that will be replaced with schools, residential homes for the elderly and schools etc are examples of a future thriving new residential/commercial zone. The emotional/proud bit was once we left the Olympic Park and headed back to Stratford International for the 'Fit for London' Transport for London presentation and Q&A. It was great to see my Grandparents' old council flat still standing 'Batteries Not Included' style within the new and improved Stratford. If anyone criticises the Olympics they only need to look back at pictures, from as recent as 2005, to see the impact that the Olympics has had on a deprived area that had no investment and good publicity. They also need to realise the amount of pounds sterling that are going to flow into the UK for the Queens' Diamond Jubilee, Olympic Games and Paralympic Games to see what is going to keep the UK out of recession in 2012. Less said about the West Ham game in the evening the better...

Wednesday included a 45 minute spin class to get the power back in the legs and then Thursday and Friday were rest days to prepare for the weekend. With only three weeks to the Paris Marathon and nine to the 10k swim its all about the final fitness and speed push until I am into April and the events come thick and fast. I can really feel the change: I can feel the testosterone starting to pump; my beard is growing ready for battle; and it feels that everything is tingling now that I am close to achieving a few more goals.

Saturday was another 5k swim at the lido in London Fields, Hackney at a steady 1 hour 46 minutes. I have made the decision that this is my last training session at the lido for the year. Whilst the bikini clad babes were a welcome distraction, the Michael Phelps-Esq numpties has finally broken me. I was included in an LA-style 5 lane motorway at one point with two tumble turning idiots either side. From next weekend on I am going to find a lake in Essex to do some proper open water swimming and get fully prepared for the marathon of the swimming world in May. At the time I thought it was a leisurely swim and didn't take too much out of me. However later in the day after 2 hours spent in a soft ball centre with my nephew Jake, his friends from nursery and the kids of the Mums from my sister antenatal and I changed my mind. My biceps were shot to bits, my back was sore from twisting through small gaps and my bum was sore through using my extra gravity to get Jake down the bottom of the slide as quick as possible:

Sunday was another PB at the Brentwood Half-Marathon. I could get used to one every weekend... Not many catsuits in the field but a lot of peroxide and fake tan.  A bit disappointed not to get under 1 hour 40 minutes but 1 hour 42 minutes has again proved I am in good form to have a great crack at my first goal of the year; sub-3 hour 30 minute marathon in Paris (although I won't wear orange to clash with my ginger beard...)

My sister is also proving to be an excellent long distance runner as she came home in an excellent 2 hours 15 minutes. I am very proud of my big Sister. She has gone from zero miles to 20 miles in seven months and I can't wait to see her on the big day on the 22nd April. I reckon I might cry like a big girl:

Big plug I know but I wouldn't be her kid brother if I didn't :-) Carol is raising money for Farleigh Hospice: http://uk.virginmoneygiving.com/fundraiser-web/fundraiser/showFundraiserProfilePage.action?userUrl=CAROLSAWARD. Any money is appreciated for a fantastic cause that is one of the main Hospices in Essex which carries of palliative care and provides bereavement support for spouses and children. In all it is a fantastic cause...

Fundraising wise, my Communication Consultant, George Karolemeas, has again stepped up to the plate and got 15 people to buy £20 tickets to the European Football themed Wine and Cheese evening. With 8 wines and food from a selection (England, Portugal, Spain, France, Germany, Croatia, Greece and Italy) of the representatives from Euro 2012 and a knock out tournament that will produce the winner before the real tournament does I am sure it will prove to be a fantastic event.

As with all of the following events, if you want to attend you can e-mail me on iandeane78@yahoo.co.uk:

         Date                     Event

• Sun 15th April:         Paris Marathon Sweep Stake
• Tues 24^th April:        Five-a-side football tournament
• Sun 27th May:         10k swim at Dorney Lake , Eton
• Wed 20th June:       Cheese and Wine evening, Broadway Complex, St James Park, London
• Tues 9th October:    Pub Quiz, The Doggett’s Coat and Badge, Southbank, Blackfriars bridge, London

So, week total: total of 4 hours 43 minutes, including 5,920 metres of swimming, 45 minutes spinning and 13.1 miles of running.

Next week: hopefully the West Ham strikers will rediscover how to score (especially at the home to Reading); Ems gets back from Hong Kong (I never thought I would look forward to Weight Watchers food but its strange what a week of Garlic Bread, Napalentana Sauce and Tomato, Cheese and Bacon Tortelloni can do for you); my sister and I do the last 20 miles of the London Marathon so she knows the landmarks; I do another 5k swim; and more importantly I fly to HK to see wifey :-)

I have also been to the supermarket to buy a mixture of low carb and non-alcohol beers. Long shot but this is my time (yes, I have just watched the Goonies for the umpteenth time...) so lets try to eek out the final x%...

TTFN

Weekend Welsh

Week 5th - 11th March ended up being an easy week as the previous speed week left me a little drained, my new job/office has meant I have had to put work above training :-(, there was a couple of leaving drinks that I wanted to attend and the weekend involved a lot of beer and food back in Wales watching the Wales-Italy Six Nations game with my in-laws.

The week started in good fashion with a 7.42 mile run in 60 mins flat on Monday, a 11.46 mile run in 1 hour 48 mins on Tuesday and finally a 828 metres drill swim in 25 minutes; but that's when the wheels fell off. Wednesday night was 'wasted' watching West Ham dominate Watford team who parked the bus and left Upton Park with a draw scarcely deserved for attacking intentions but well deserved for utilising the dark arts of discipline and work ethic.

Thursday and Friday were impromptu rest days due to the two fore mentioned leaving drinks, with the one on Friday evening finishing in the small hours after my second visit to Reflex night club in as many weeks. The weekend to Wales involved zero training unless you can be convinced that I was carbo loading 6 weeks before the marathon, as it seemed to centre around beer and bar food. Still all work and training makes Deano a dull boy, so I shouldn't be that dull for a few weeks as I was well oiled and got into the spirit of being weekend welsh alongside the majority of the stadium who seemed to get on trains from London, Reading, Swindon and Bristol...

Saturday evening finished with me snoozing on my in-laws couch around 9 pm having nightmares based on the hammers dropping a further 2 points at home to Doncaster. Sunday's highlight was watching England winning in Paris, a near fight on the mainline back to Paddington between a stoned student and a drunk squaddie (I know who my money would have been on...) and booking my flights to Hong Kong.

My sister in-law, Emily has headed off to stay with the wife in Hong Kong. Whilst I never entertained the thought that I would end up living with my sister in-law like a modern day Eric Sykes and Hattie Jacques in Sykes, it has been quite entertaining as Emily is the only person I know that has gone on a date with an Undertaker. Besides being home alone will mean I have to look after myself again. At least I will eat a lot of pasta and Chicken...

Week 12 - 18th March culminated in my first half marathon of the year in Great Bentley in a rapid time on 1 hours 45 minutes. I was hoping to finish in 1 hours 40 minutes but it was still a personal best and was dead on the pace that I need to follow for the Paris Marathon in order to break 3:30. The weekend also involved both my nephew's birthday party and my birthday, however if you saw us playing you wouldn't credit there was 32 years between us...

Also this week TfL has almost finished installing the last pillon for London's first ski lift:

Weeks total: 5 hours 21 minutes/36 miles running and 23 minutes/920 metre swimming.
Next week should be spent getting my swimming training for the 10k swim back on track, watching West Ham at home to Middlesbrough and my second halfmarathon in Brentford, with only four weeks to go to the Paris Marathon.

TTFN...

I don't like Monday's...

I don't like Mondays for a lot of reasons but this Monday was an especially frustrating one. My last blog mentioned that I had bought a snorkel and I was looking forward to trying it out. Well, Monday morning, snorkel on head, I was in the pool. Two lengths of the, now accurately measured 23 metre pool (see previous Exaggeration of Length post of the blog), I was apprehended by the life guard. "Sorry mate no snorkels allowed in this pool" he said. "Why?". "Well, if you drown we can't administer resuscitation". Despite my protests that the risk of me drowning was reduced by wearing a snorkel and that I am not a lesser known member of the X-Men, so he could remove my snorkel, it was to no avail. Snorkel was back in bag , I was back to my previous drills and was praising myself for wasting £20.

The observant amongst you will notice the hyperlink in the paragraph above. I am now an official Associate of Amazon. Basically, this means that if a reader clicks on any link in one of my blogs and buys the product I get 10% referral fee from Amazon which I will donate to Mencap. At this point I should mention that I have already made £20 this week from this blog through my partnership with Google Adsense. Simply, they associate an advert to my blog and I generate money for Mencap based on page views and people clicking on the ads. If you can click on the ad links it will help me raise money for Mencap with minimal effort for you...

My Garmin Forerunner 910XT watch helped me think on my flippers to salvage Mondays swimming training. Quick 736 metres of drills later I got home and loaded up the data to Garmin Connect and I realised the power of the watch. The spirit levels in the watch sense every stroke, every length and can estimate my stroke efficiency. As I say every day to my mate at TfL, George, with his old fashioned Garmin watch, its amazing how far technology has progressed and how unfortunate it is that he has to count his lengths in the pool. How does he count beyond 20...

Still, Monday was made tolerable by TfL beginning to assemble one the main pylons for the new Emirates Cable Car across the Thames. You will see that I have now figured out, I have learnt a lot over the last two weeks, how to add pictures to the blog which will come in handy after the MdS. Well, I already know I am a geek but I can add crane fetish to lengthy list of of my embarrassing interests/hobbies including Rom Coms, underground train spotting, overall love of integration, differentiation and algebra etc. The crane is amazing, as the picture below will testify, as it has four angles of changing the torque:

I just think it was slightly unfortunate that the workers, despite maybe health and safety reasons, wear guantanamo bay-esque Orange jump suits...

Monday evening was another barometer of the progress I am making with my fitness this year. I was very strong on my 7.42 mile run and completed it in one hour dead at an average pace of 8.11 minutes per mile. In order to break 3 hours 30 minutes at the Paris Marathon I need to run 8 minutes per mile for the whole 26 miles. I reckon that I could have run another seven miles at that pace but somehow in 6 weeks I need to find an extra 12 miles at 8:00 pace.

Tuesday, another 943 metre swim and a slow 11 mile run home. Wednesday was a 45 minute spin class and Thursday was a 1 hour football match. Friday was a rest day. Stats for week till Wednesday (i.e. end of Feb):

• 1679 metres swimming
• 18.24 miles of running
• 45 minutes spin class

 Total for February:

• Swimming: 15,279 kilometers or the distance between Barking and North Greenwich; and
• Running: 120.74 miles or Barking to Nottingham.

As the songs says, "I don't like Mondays but Friday I'm in love" so the weekends are going to be the hardest thing about Becs being in HK. Still, this weekend I have survived by filling my day with training, watching a lot of sport, Jackass and old comedy on the TV, I now own the remote control :-) and evenings out with friends. Saturday's training was 3k swim at London Fields 50 metre Lido which helped get rid of the hangover:

Today I am going for a 20 mile run, visit my parents to collect my turbo trainer, now that it has finally delivered by Amazon and watch the mighty Hammers on TV away to Cardiff where there will hopefully get another 3 points to march on to the title.

Next week I am going to redesign my blog to make it look a bit more professional, pay to get the blog up the top of the Google search list and have another speed week on the running training before heading to Wales next weekend to see my in-laws and watch the Wales-Italy Six Nations Game at Cardiff. Now, do I buy a Wales Rugby shirt or not...

TTFN