First day back

After 2 days off of running and my legs feeling great, I went for a run on Woody Mountain Rd with a my friend of mine, Rob. My legs certainly didn't feel like they had a marathon in them and felt quite loose and frisky. We just ran easy and I was only supposed to go 20 mins but I ended up running 47 mins as it was an out and back run. On the way home, I stopped by Burritos Fiesta and got one of the best burrito's that I have ever had. That is saying something as that is always the first thing I order where ever I go in the states. I'm really glad that Scotland has a good place to get burritos now also. Illegal Jacks is doing a great job of churning out some great Tex Mex food and its perfect for after training.

I'm really looking forward to getting back into some hard training in a few weeks time and getting back into a good routine. I'm all over the place right. I'm waking up very early and the days are going on for ever as I don't have work until tomorrow and no real training so passing the time is the hard part of my day. I got an email from my agent, Jurrie, with a list of road races in the summer that I could run in. They are all big races and will be very competitive so that will great for me to be pushed to the limit every time I race. I let the selectors know that I will to be running the European Champs marathon in the summer and I think they were rightfully a bit annoyed with me. It was a spur of the moment, post marathon that I said that I want to run the marathon so I will now always talk to Greg and Jurrie first before deciding on anything. I will now look towards a fast marathon in the autumn. Chicago and Amsterdam are the 2 I think I would like to choose from but Amsterdam is a Mizuno race and my agents organise the race so that may be the perfect set up for me.

Julie and I walked through the house last (the roof is now on and will be getting wired for electricity next week) and everything looks great. We are getting really excited about the progress and can't wait to move in. Our house being the first one on the plot means that when we move in, there will be a lot of building going on around us but that will only last for a couple of months.

I'm now going to run a hot bath and add some epsom salts to help my legs to relax. I am predicting that I will also pass out as soon as I get out of the bath so that will be great as I have been waking up so early.

Lastly, I made the cover of Athletics Weekly again. Click HERE to view.

You can now follow me on Twitter also @LemonRuns

Reflections

I've decided to jot down all the things that have been going through my head since the race. I was disappointed with the run but all the nice messages that I have been getting from everyone on here, facebook and twitter (LemonRuns) has really lifted my spirits and made me look at the brighter side of things.

Cons:

I ran a lot slower than I had hoped

I wasn't tough enough mentally

Struggled when it got windy

I really wanted to make a statement to prove what kind of athlete I am

Pros:

Great experience

Knowing that I can run 2.13 on my own

My legs not being trashed afterwards showing that I can run a lot faster

Fantastic support from everyone (even people that I don't know)

I tend to run better after a failure so I am very determined to run fast later in the year

I am taking a couple of days off and then starting a recovery cycle of running for 20 mins one day, day off the next. Greg is big on making sure that we don't overdo it after a marathon as there is still a lot of micro trauma in the legs that needs to heal before going on to do any races or hard workouts. It is now 2 days after the race and my legs feel fine. My left IT band is a little tight but it just feels like I have done a hard speed session. Given this fact, I think we can shorten my recovery phase and I can start concentrating on whatever races we choose to run. I now think (after talking to my agents and Greg) that Barcelona might be out of the books as they don't want me to destroy my body in the blazing heat of the Spanish sun. Jos Hermans and I had a good talk about future plans and he said that he had seen so many athletes ruin themselves in hot weather marathons and haven't been able to get back from it. With my big goals being in 2012 and 2014 I really have to think about this. I think it may be a good decision to hit some fast road races and really get my half marathon time down to something decent so when I want to go through half way in a marathon in 64 mins, it will hopefully feel easy.

Greg is happy with the result as it was far from a perfect day. He told me that with better pacemakers and being in an actual racing environment instead of solo running that I will easily run faster. He has got my head back in the place where it should be and I have now stopped feeling sorry for myself and being annoyed about the race.

I can't tell you how great the Marathon team did in making sure that everything was perfect for us on the lead up to the race. The workers did everything and beyond to make sure we suffered no stress and could concentrate on the task at hand rather than worrying about little things that they could take of for us.

It was so uplifting to get back to my room and see how many messages of congratulations and well wishes that I had from everyone. I hope that I can inspire people to run and train hard and also to enjoy the sport. The main reason I run is because I love it so much and that feeling I get when I cross the finish line knowing that I have run well. Its something that gets me through the hard days because I know without those seemingly never ending painful days, there are no easy days when running comes effortlessly. I get inspired by those of you who are out there for the love of the sport and getting around the course and enjoying yourselves. It is so much harder for those runners who are out there for 4-5 hours as that is how long they are on their feet for. I am only on mine for a couple of hours so my job is easier than theirs. The pain and suffering they go through, battling against injuries and cramping, is so amazing and I applaud those people. Without them, events like the London marathon wouldn't be what it is.

I am looking forward to having a little time off and having a few drinks here and there. Our friends are throwing a party/BBQ this weekend at one of the local parks in honour of Jill who finished the Big Sur marathon in 4.54 only 2 weeks after her final round of chemotherapy. We are so proud of her and simply amazed by how well she has coped with everything she has been going through. We are all looking forward to those celebrations and just enjoying ourselves with great company and great beer! I found a mini keg of Warsteiner beer when I was in Phoenix a few weeks ago so i'm looking forward to tucking into that.

I hope all of you out there who were running had a fantastic day and if you weren't, were at least able to get some inspiration from the 37,000 runners who were able to get round the 26.2 miles.

4/25/10

London Marathon!!!

I woke up at around 5.40am so I could get my breakfast 4 hours before the race. I had some porridge with honey, toast with jam, coffee and orange juice. I sat with Dan and then Richard Nerurkar joined us for a little while. I went back to the room and double checked all my running gear and then headed down to Starbucks to get a big coffee for the ride over to the start. They had set up some tents for the elite athletes and it was great to feel the warmth of the fans they had installed in there. There were a bunch of yoga mats set up on the floor for everyone to sit on and relax before the race. With about 45 mins to the start, I went for a short jog before going through all my stretches. I then put on my waterproof gear as it had started to rain and headed over to the adjacent field to jog for 10 mins. I was feeling good and ready for the race. I went back to the tent and dried off my feet and covered them in vaseline before putting some dry socks on. I then put vaseline on every other part of my body and then headed out to the start. I wanted to wear my new Oakley's but with it being a little darker outside now with the rain I decided against it. I stood on the start line knowing that I was ready to run well and confident with what I had to do over the next couple of hours.

I felt very easy at my desired pace as we ran through the first few miles. This really helped my head as I knew I would need to get through the first half of the race as easily as possible. The 3rd mile is very downhill so it was good to have some time in the bank if we slipped off pace at any time. The crowds were really loud and enthusiastic especially once we passed Cutty Sark. Our splits were fluctuating a little bit which was a little annoying as I prefer to run a steady pace but I don't know if my pace maker had ever done any pacing before. I wasn't confident that he was going to be able to get me through the contracted 20 miles so I decided to leave it for a few miles and then reassess the situation. We got to 10 miles about 10 secs off pace and then came a 5.07 mile so I decided to take off as I didn't want to lose any more time by waiting for the pacer to do his job. I went through the half way point in 65.25 (the pacer went through in 65.45) and was lifted by the support of the crowd crossing over Tower Bridge. I knew I was going to have to dig deep for the rest of the race as I was going to be alone and I was getting to the windy section of the course. There were a lot of corners and straights and it didn't matter what direction I was going in, I was always running into the wind! I really dropped some slow splits here (a few 5.20s and even a 5.30 later on) so I had to refocus and motivate myself and try to keep a good pace. It was pretty demoralising knowing that a fast time was out of reach now and Greg was was bang on the mark when he said that I would really have to start caring after the 20 mile mark. It would have been so easy to stop running and jog it in but my long training runs had set me up for this type of feeling and it was easy to block these thoughts out. The last few miles were a lot easier, mentally as the crowds are there the whole way. Although I wasn't running fast, I was able to dig a little deeper but again, I the headwind was getting stronger all the time. Approaching Big Ben was a great feeling as I knew I only had a few minutes of running left so it felt like the time flew by at this point. Running down Birdcage Walk was great but the crowds weren't being that enthusiastic (I don't think they knew I was British) so on a couple of occasions I put my hands up to my ears to get them going a bit as I would need the help getting to the finish. I felt like I was jogging at this point so it was good to reach the final straight and finally make it though the finish line. I finished in 8th place with a time of 2.13.40. I was really disappointed and I was quite emotional so it took a little while for me to relax and be ready to speak to the BBC. The good thing was that my legs felt fine so I knew there was still a lot left in the tank. This bodes well for my future marathons and I'm already looking forward to the next one. I got a short massage before heading to the bus back to the hotel. The bus actually took us to the river where we got a boat along the river to the front of the hotel. I had a shower (I had no chaffing so the shower was a good one) before heading down to grab some lunch. The rest of the afternoon was spent relaxing and then my friend Andy came and met me and we had a drink down in the bar. There was a banquet at 6pm so I got changed for that and we headed off on the buses to the venue.

The banquet was good and I was presented with the Jim Peter's Trophy for being first Brit. Unfortunately I was starting to get pretty sleepy, as were the others at my table, so we decided to head back around 10.30pm and get to sleep. I passes out right away!

Overall, the experience of the marathon was fantastic. I had so much fun running in front of the home crowd and finishing in the top ten of a major marathon.

I will be continuing the blog but maybe not everyday now as I will be taking a short break now and giving my legs a nice rest. I hope that all of you that were running the marathon had a fantastic day and ran well.

Here is the Glasgow Herald interview with a pretty cool photo: Click Here

4/24/10

Saturday's Training - 30 mins easy with drills and strides.

Mileage - 4 Miles

Today was all about just ticking over. I got up early and had a coffee and croissant in the restaurant before meeting Dan Robinson at 7am for an easy run. We were basically just turning our feet over so the run went by pretty quickly. I felt good doing my drills and strides so I headed upstairs, did a bunch of stretching and then headed down to breakfast. I filled up as much as I could with lots of carbs and then went and got a massage. The rest of the was spent mulling about and trying not to think about the race. I met my friend Angie for lunch and then just relaxed in my room for a long while. We had a technical meeting at 5pm and then got stuck into dinner. It was a buffet so that was good for topping up the glycogen levels. I talked to Julie for a little while before heading to bed and getting to sleep early.

4/23/10

Friday’s Training – Am: 48 mins easy Pm: 20 mins easy

Mileage – 10 Miles

I had a nice easy day today. It was good that I had got all my duties out of the way yesterday as that would give me 2 days just to relax and unwind before the race. I woke up a little later at around 6.40am and headed downstairs to have a coffee and croissant. There were already some athletes in the restaurant, having done their morning runs. Once I was finished, I went back up to my room and relaxed for a bit until 7.30am when I headed out for my run. I kept being told that if you head along the river towards the east that there was some good running but I just found it to be twisty, cobbled roads. I got to a bridge and decided to head back along the road that is part of the course. I followed this all the way along to around the 24 mile mark on the course and turned around and headed back to the hotel. I had some fantastic weather for the run and it was really nice to see the sights as I ran along beside the Thames. I did all my drills and then headed up to the room so I could get on with some stretching. My room is pretty small so I had to go out into the area beside the elevator’s as that was the nearest place with enough room. I headed down to breakfast after this where I had some fried potatoes, beans, bacon, porridge with honey, banana and croissant. I knew all that food would get me sleepy so I headed up to my room, had a nice hot shower and then tucked myself in and had a nap.

Once I had woken up, I headed downstairs and met Pete Riley (elite athlete coordinator for the Great Run races and good athlete himself) in the bar. We sat and had some lunch and caught up on what’s been going on with each other. I expressed my interest in running the Great North Run as I still haven’t run it. After we had finished up, I walked downstairs and sat with Dan Robinson in the lounge for a while before Dave Monti (elite athlete coordinator for the New York Road Runners) joined us and told us a few stories about the Boston and Rotterdam marathons. I headed up to the athlete lounge for a little while to watch last years race but then remembered that I had to get back to the room so I could talk to Julie on Skype. It was good to see Julie again as I had missed her yesterday with how busy my day was. There has been no more movement on the house as it has snowed the past couple of days in Flagstaff. I then talked to Greg for a while and filled him on how I’ve been feeling. He was supposed to be here but with the flights being messed up, he wasn’t able to get here. He had sent me all my fuelling strategies for the final 3 days before the race and I have been following well. The rest of the day was spent mulling about and relaxing with my feet up.

I went for my second run at 5.30pm and felt good. This was just a shake out run to get my legs moving so it was pretty slow but I did some dynamic stretches afterwards so that my body was nice and loose. I quickly got changed and met Kim Smith and one of my agents, Valentijn in the lobby as we had to go to the welcome banquet on a boat that was moored outside the hotel. Kim and I headed onto the boat and tried to scoff down as much of the canapés and bread that was on offer as we were both pretty hungry. After a few speeches were made, we headed out and I went over to the Dickins Inn again to grab some dinner. All the other British guys had just been for dinner so I was on my own but that was fine as I usually eat pretty quickly and wanted to get back to my room as it was starting to get late. I had a lasagne and a sticky toffee pudding. I have spent much of my build up to the marathon with no desserts but now I get to use the marathon as an excuse to eat them! The meal was very average so I won’t be going there tomorrow. I don’t usually like to eat so late and then head to bed but as it was getting close to 10pm I just brushed my teeth and put my head down for the night.

4/22/10

Thursday’s Training – Am: 48 mins with 6*1 min hard, 1 min easy

Mileage – 7 Miles

I woke up at 6am this morning and headed down to the restaurant to get a coffee and croissant before heading out for my run. I relaxed in my room for a while and was glad to see that the weather was going to be nice. I had been told by some of the marathon staff that there was a park a couple of miles away so I made an attempt at finding it. I missed Jamaica road somehow and headed down a different street and winded my way through all the streets until I found it and suddenly I was at the park. As I ran around, I was amazed to see a disused track fenced up beside a sports centre. It’s a shame to see a perfectly good track just sitting there and unable to be used. I found a good stretch of flat path and did my mini fartlek on it so that I could get my legs moving a bit. I felt pretty good and was running pretty fast so hopefully come race day, I can do the same. After I was finished, I jogged back to the hotel and stretched for a little while before showering and heading down to breakfast.

I was disappointed to see that no porridge was available but I am going to ask if they can get some for race day. I headed up to the athlete lounge to se if I could get on the computers and I found James Thie (former international athlete and working for the marathon this weekend), Dan Robinson and our pace maker, Mike Morgan from the USA. We sat and chatted for a little white but I got up at 10.30am as I was scheduled to get a massage in the next room. The massage was great and just what I needed before the busy day ahead. Once I was finished it was straight off to do some press photos and some TV interviews outside of the hotel with the Tower bridge in the background. After about half an hour of doing that, we headed back inside and then Dan and I had our press conference. It was fairly straight forward and there were no questions that stumped me. I also managed to avoid telling anyone my time goals for the race, which seem to be the question that everyone kept bringing up. Dan and I then had one on one interviews with the respective papers and then again we headed outside for some more BBC TV interviews. This all went onto about 1.30pm so it was good timing as I was meeting one of the Mizuno media reps to head over and do some work at the marathon expo. I quickly went upstairs and got changed into my race gear and after grabbing a sandwich and coffee we headed off to the DLR train.

One of the many photo's from todays press work

The expo looked great and I immediately saw my old housemate from Florida, Mark Buckingham who was working at the Timex stand. I had a quick word but promised I would head back later and catch up with him. The Mizuno stand was really nice and I had a quick peek at all the shoes they had out as I haven’t tried out a lot of the range that they have. I spent the next hour or so doing interviews with various magazines, newspapers, radio and TV channels and then finally got to see the Online Precision Fit system that Mizuno have come up with. Its basically site where you can go and answer a bunch of questions about your weight, body type, foot strike, leg movement and flexibility and it will narrow down the shoes that would be good for you. This saves a lot of time with having to deal with the wall of shoes that can be a bit daunting when entering a running store. The system chose for me the Wave Rider (which I already use) and the Wave Precision so I tried a pair on and they felt great. After having a bit of a jog on the treadmill with them, I fully agreed that the shoes were well suited to me. The Mizuno guys actually let me keep the shoes so I was really happy about that. I headed back to the Timex stand and had a good blether with Mark for a while before his boss offered me their new watch to use during the race. Again, I was happy to oblige and the watch turned out to be a really good one. It’s a tap screen so you just have to slap your wrist when you want to take a split. It will then tell you whether it’s faster or slower than the split that you will have programmed into the watch. It means that this will be perfect for Sunday as it will tell me exactly how much quicker or slower than my projected pace I am and I can (hopefully) make the appropriate pace changes. I decided to finally get off my feet and headed back to the hotel so I could relax for a while.

Not long after getting back, I got a call from one of my groomsmen, Andy Scott, who I went to school with. He lives in London so we decided to catch up and have dinner so he headed over to the hotel and we headed over to the Dickens Inn for some dinner. We both had some pizza and salad and chatted for quite a while and caught up on all our news. We left there around 9pm and walked back to the hotel where I bumped into some more friends. One of them was Ian Hornabrook who I also used to live with in Florida. I hadn’t seen him for 4 years so it was good to see him and we promised to catch up more after the race. Andy headed home and I headed to my room and talked to Julie for a while before watching some TV and heading to sleep around 11pm. I wasn’t as tired tonight so found it hard to sleep but even more annoying was that after sleeping for a couple of hours, I woke up from a dream and found my body was really hot. This made it very tough to get back to sleep but after wriggling about for 20 minutes or so, I managed to slip back into my much needed sleep.

Here were some of the interviews:

Click Here

4/21/10

Wednesday's Training - Am: 20 mins easy Pm: 20 mins easy

Mileage - 6 Miles

Cover of this weeks AW

Today was a travel day down to London so I didn't get much training in. I was going to get up early and get a workout of 10*1 min hard, 1 min easy in but I woke up later and didn't want to risk missing the bus to the train station so I just went for a shake out run. The rest of the day was travelling to London. Bus to Leuchars, Train to Edinburgh, Train to London. I got to the Tower Hotel around 4.30pm and once I was checked in I headed to the 12th floor to let them know I was here and pick up my passes. I made the mistake of going by the media room before I went for my second run as I was roped into getting some photos taken and giving a few impromptu interviews. It was a long time before I actually got out for my run and when I started, I could feel my back pinching so decided to just do another shake out run and settle for doing some good strides the next day. A good amount of stretching and a nice hot shower later, I headed down to the Carvary and had a big roast dinner. That filled me up nicely for the night and I just settled into my room and went to sleep early.

Short blog today but tomorrow's will be a bit longer as my day is jammed full of activities.

4/20/10

Tuesday’s Training – Am: 52 mins easy Pm: 27 mins easy

Mileage – 11 Miles

Julie sent me some pictures of how the house is coming along

I woke up automatically at 6.20am this morning, which I was happy about as I thought it would be hard to start waking up at that time during this trip. I will be waking up around 5.45am on race morning so this was perfect. I went out for my run at 7.30am and headed over to the golf courses so I could run my second favourite route in the world (First is the Mesa Trail in Boulder). The run takes you out along a trail following the famous Old Course and it spits you out at the end of the beach where the opening scene of Chariots of Fire was filmed. This morning was incredibly windy and I almost came to a stand still at one point when I hit an exposed fairway. I had a good time watching some guys trying to tee off as their balls kept falling off the tee’s and then once they had hit the ball it would shoot up into the air (carried by the wind) and then hit the ground about 50 meters away and start rolling backwards. I would have laughed but I was having just as much trouble trying to stay vertical. I can’t believe I’m saying this but it was windier than Flagstaff! Luckily, once I got to the beach I was running with the wind and it was plain sailing from there. The sand was hard but the loose sand was being blown across into the sea so it created a very cool misty effect. With the sun still rising into the sky, the town looked beautiful. This is the reason I love this run so much – When you get to the beach you are just looking at the town the whole way in and with so many ancient buildings on the skyline, it can take your breath away. I was just running very easily so I got back to the house and woke up my legs a bit with some drills and some hard strides. I then headed into the house and got some good stretching in before having some breakfast and heading into town to get some chores done.

Once I got back I just lay in front of the TV for a few hours with my feet up until my mum arrived. We caught up for a wee bit and then I headed out for a short jog again. This time I went over to the university playing fields, which I also love running on. It takes about 10 minutes to get around the perimeter of the fields and its nice and soft as they keep very good care of the fields. There is also a 4-lane track there but it is easy to miss as it is green and blends right into the grass. I felt good and again did some drills, strides and stretching afterwards to activate my fast twitch fibres.

I made some dinner of sausages, asparagus and mashed sweet potatoes and then we got ready to go to the East Fife Sports Council awards ceremony. My mum won the Master’s award and Fife AC seem to clear up most of the other awards so that was great. We headed back to the house and it was getting late so I headed straight to bed.

4/19/10

Monday's Training - Am: 5*1km with 2mins rec (on the road). Pm: 30 mins easy

Mileage - 15 Miles

This morning was a complete turn around from the last few days. I woke up just before 7am, which is the same time I wake up back in the USA so I think I am back onto my usual routine and over the jet lag. I headed out the door at 8.30am for half a mile so that I could stretch afterwards and then went for a 3 mile warm up. I was going to do the workout on the track but decided to head out onto a 1km road straight by my old school. I thought this would be better as I may get carried away on the track and if I was on the road, I wouldn’t know what pace I would be going. The first rep was in 2.50 and it felt pretty easy. I was running against the wind so I figured that I would get a nice tail wind for reps 2 and 4 but as usual, when I started my next rep, I was running into a stronger headwind! That’s the St Andrew’s Effect that I mentioned in a previous blog and it was staying true for this trip home. I felt really relaxed on all my reps and decided to pick it up just a little bit on the last rep and it didn’t feel too much different so I was happy about this. I was happy to get a little spark back in my legs and feel fine again. I headed back to the house after a 3 mile warm down and then went down to the Castle Sands so that I could take an ice bath in the Rock Pool there. I can’t believe they used to use this as a swimming pool back in the day. It was really cold and almost as soon as I had gotten into the water, it started to snow! It only lasted for a few minutes but it was enough to dampen my thoughts of a warm fire that was keeping me going. The view from the water is fantastic though as on one side you have the ruins of the old cathedral and then on the other side was the ruins of St Andrews castle. I towelled off after 12 minutes and headed back to the house for a warm shower and some food. I spent much of the afternoon just relaxing in front of the TV with my feet up.

The Castle Sands

I went for a second run at 3pm as I was getting a massage at 4pm. I felt good again and was feeling very easy at the pace that I was struggling with yesterday. I headed over to the St Andrews FC grounds for my massage with Jez Tomlinson. He did a great job of getting into my muscles and digging into the knots and tight bits. He did leave the worst for last though as he got stuck into my glutes. They were really tight and needed some work so I was really glad he got in and put me through the pain of deep tissue massage. I headed over to the Castle Sands again and stood in the water for a second ice bath of the day. I actually got a little crowd of Japanese people pointing and staring at me from the cliff top as they pondered what I was doing. The waves were pretty big so I headed over to a different section of the beach where there was an inlet and there were no waves. I finished up just as it started to rain so I scrambled out and try to pull my clothes on. I went back to the house and had a nice hot shower and then re heated some leftover pasta with some garlic bread and salad.

4/18/10

Sunday's Training - Am: 64 mins easy Pm: 28 mins easy

Mileage - 14 Miles

Weekly Mileage - 88 Miles

So things are now getting a little frustrating. My legs still aren't coming around and I felt really tired on both of my runs today. I woke up after a good sleep and sat around on the computer while I had some coffee and toast. At 10.30am I walked into town and headed to Church but I was freezing all the way there as there was a chill in the wind. I was in my running clothes as I was meeting Tom afterwards to go for a run. The service was very different from the ones I am used to in the states and it was a little strange to hear a priest doing his homily and not trying to keep the attention of his congregation. Each to their own I guess. I headed over to Tom's apartment afterwards and we waited for his flat mate to arrive and then headed out onto the beach and golf course for the run. I didn't feel good to start but after about 5 miles I did feel a little better. We did 2 loops and then I left the guys as I headed back to Ronnie's. I did some drills and some hard strides to see if that would wake my legs up but no success. After doing some stretching I had a big breakfast and then curled up in front of the TV and fell asleep for a little while.

I wasn't going to run again but I did end up heading out the door as I wanted to see how my legs felt. I only ran 4 miles but they seem to take a long time. I can only hope that my legs will start responding in the next couple of days. Its really strange that I can feel great everyday while running 150 miles in a week but I feel awful once I bring the mileage down and start running easier. I am reassured by almost everyone that this is what it feels like before the marathon and Andi Jones sent me a message saying that this is actually harder than the training and the race! I can well believe that! Once I got back I grabbed a shower and cooked some lamb burgers, brussels and mashed potato and then caught up with Julie for a while. I then just relaxed in front of the TV watching a film and headed to bed around 11pm.

4/17/10

Saturday's Training - Am: 62 mins slow Pm: 55 mins easy

Mileage - 16.5 Miles

I woke up at 7.30am so that I could head into Perth with my dad and get a run in on a soft surface rather than running along the side of the dual carriageway. Dad dropped me off at the Sports Centre and then headed off to the gym while I went for my run. There are 2 big green areas in Perth called the Inches (South and North). The Scottish national cross country championships have been held there a few times and I actually had my most disappointing loss there. I was running the senior race for the first time and was running well at the time. I desperately wanted to win but had a bad run on the day came 3rd. I think that is one of the only times I have cried after a race. Anyway, I started my run at the South Inch and ran over to the North, did a loop of that and then headed out on a trail that follows the river. I ran until 30 mins and then just turned back and ran the same route back. I was feeling really tired this morning so was running very slowly, no more than a shuffle really. I showered in the sports centre afterwards and then walked over to the gym where my dad was finishing up. Before heading back to the house, we picked up some groceries and I was able to grab some real bacon. The difference between bacon in the UK and the USA is the fat content. the USA version is almost pure fat whereas the UK version is almost all meat. We got back and I made some bacon and scrambled eggs and then I went to bed so I could take a nap. I woke up feeling a lot better but I was still a little groggy but I was meeting my friend, Tom, in Dundee so I would grab some coffee once I got there. We drove into Dundee and I had a good time catching up with Tom and talking about what we were both up to and if we had heard anything about our friends from our school days. After a while I had went back to St Andrews on the bus and headed out for another run. I met one of the university runners, Tom Cunningham, and we did loops of the playing fields for a while before heading back into town. I ran with him to his house and then ran along the Lade Braes (a paved trail that leads from the middle of town out to the edge of town, almost like an urban trail) and back to Ronnie's house. I felt a lot better running this evening but still a little stale so hopefully that will disappear over the next couple of days. I grabbed my wallet from the house and ran onto the store so I could get some supplies for the house.

Once I got back, there was a message from Ronnie saying that he and his wife would be stuck in Jordan for while (They went there on a cycling holiday) so could I water all the plants in the green house. I made up some dinner of pasta with lots of veggies and then caught up with Julie for a while on Skype. I headed to bed pretty early but watched programs on my computer until I got sleepy and fell asleep around midnight.

Here is a link to an article that the Scotsman newspaper wrote about me this week:

http://sport.scotsman.com/athletics/Baptised-Andrew-Lemoncello-has-faith.6235018.jp

4/16/10

Friday's Training - Am: 76 mins (6 miles easy in 38 mins, 6 miles hard - 5.04, 5.07, 4.59, 5.00, 4.52, 4.55, 1 mile easy.

Mileage - 13 Miles

I only got 6 hours of sleep last night as I fell asleep at 2.30am and woke up at 8.30am so I could get the workout done and head into Dundee to meet my dad later on. I was actually feeling ok when I went out the door but my legs didn't have any snap to them at all so I wasn't looking forward to the 6 mile pick up. I got through the first 6 miles no problem and had headed out on the beach road so that I could turn around for the start of the hard 6 miles and then out along the bike path that heads towards Dundee. I was finding the hard section tough right from the start so I really tried to get into a good rhythm and flow through it rather than grind away and tense up. This didn't work! When I got to the bike path I was heading into the wind and was getting put off by the times I was running but I knew to expect to still feel bad as I'm still in the post altitude lag time. Once I turned around and was running a little quicker I was still working hard and that was at around marathon pace so I that got me a bit frustrated. Right now is the hardest time for me. I know not to worry about my fitness because I had great workouts last week and this is the time that I should be feeling my worst but its just annoying to wake up everyday and slog through the runs. A few more days and i'll be as right as rain though so i'm looking forward to that.

Glendoick House. My dad and his wife live in the apartment on the upper right hand side of the building that you can see.

After the run, I headed into Dundee and met my Dad and we just sat outside in the lovely weather, drinking coffee and chatting. A friend of mine from school walked by which was really weird as I was going to be meeting him the next day in town. After a while, Dad and I headed back to Glendoick (where he lives) and just relaxed after having some fajitas for dinner.

4/15/10

Thursday’s Training – Am: 35 mins easy Pm: Off

Mileage – 5 Miles

I woke up this morning after 9am sometime and was glad that again I had made it through the night without waking up and that I had gotten at least 8 hours of good sleep. As I came out of the bedroom door, I bumped into AC who was just getting ready to head into the restaurant so we had a quick chat as I turned the kettle on and fetched my PowerBar. I sat in the living room playing around on the computer for a while before heading out the door to get my run in. I was actually just going to run half a mile and then do my stretching but once I started running I felt a little stale so decided to do an easy 5 miles and then so the workout once I got to St Andrews in the evening. It was another nice day outside so that made the run all the more pleasant. It has been a while since I have done a workout in the evening and I have always preferred that. We do our workouts in the morning as most of our races are in the morning and so we have to get our bodies used to that. I still race far better in the evenings after having a morning run and resting all day. I think that is why I have always run well in the track races that are held at night. I was really disappointed when I got to Beijing that my race was at 8.30am as the girls had their heats in the evening and I know I could have run really well had it been that way. That was a long time ago though and I have adapted to the morning races a lot better.

After the run I had some breakfast and then got onto the train to Leuchars and then hopped onto the bus to St Andrews. The great thing about this bus is that it drops you off right outside of where Ronnie (my Fife AC coach) lives. When your dragging a big bag around with you this makes a big difference. I unpacked and then relaxed for a little while before deciding against doing the workout today. I was feeling tired so I pushed it back a day and will adapt the training for the rest of the remaining time before the marathon. I headed down to the Fife AC training group that meets at the sports center on a Thursday and it was good to see that there are still a good amount of people turning up. I got to see my old coach Dave Francis and a bunch of others who have been in the club for a long time. I headed back to the house to have some dinner and relax for a while. I was getting tired in front of the TV but tried to stay awake so I could fall asleep later on. The problem was that when I went to bed I couldn’t nod off so I read for a bit. It must have been around 2.30am before I fell asleep but hopefully tomorrow I can get to sleep a lot earlier.

4/14/10

Wednesday’s Training – Am: 70 mins easy Pm: 45 mins easy

Mileage – 16.5 Miles

The difference between today and yesterday was huge. I slept right through the night again and woke up feeling pretty good. I sat and had some coffee and a PowerBar before heading out the door and I knew as soon as my foot hit the pavement that it wasn’t going to be as bad as yesterday. I felt so much better and was able to enjoy my run this time. 7 years ago, when I was at university in Stirling, AC had taken me on a run around Edinburgh that led us along a canal trail so I decided to try and find that. I found it almost right away as I knew the trail popped out near where his sister’s apartment was but finding my way back along it was going to be tough as there are a bunch of turn offs and roads to cross. After about 4 miles on a tiny trail, I hit the canal and it was a good feeling. I was heading towards the city so I had a great view of the castle and Arthur’s Seat. I also passed a pub that had a cracking name – The Kilted Pig! The trail ending up spitting me out right downtown so I did a lap of The Meadows and then headed back to the apartment. After some drills, stretching and breakfast, I headed up to the restaurant and spent a little time just drinking coffee and doing some stuff on the computer. Julie called me also so it was really good to hear her voice and to know that she is doing well. After a couple of hours AC mentioned something about a run so I pounced on this and told him to we should do one together for old times sake. He was a bit nervous as he hasn’t run much since his competitive days but it wasn’t too hard to convince him. We went back to the apartment and got changed and then headed over to do 2 laps of The Meadows and back. A nice easy 6 miles later and we were happy! AC was very surprised that he had lasted as long as that as the longest he’d done recently was 25 minutes. After standing outside and chatting for a little while, we headed in, got showers and then headed back up to the restaurant. Right away I got stuck into a burrito as I was getting hungry and that filled me up for a while. I had been texting my old house mate and good friend (and Olympic 110m hurdler), Allan Scott during the day and he met me at the restaurant and we sat at talked for 3 hours or so at one of the window tables and caught up on all our news as we hadn’t seen each other since the Olympics. We both actually stayed a day later than everyone in Beijing and spent the rest of our money on a huge meal at a restaurant in the city. The restaurant was closing up after 9pm so Allan got the bus back to his apartment and AC and I went back to his sister’s and relaxed for a little while before I headed to bed at midnight. I didn’t go to sleep until 1 am but that was fine as I had some reading material. I’m hoping that come next week, I wont have any problem getting to sleep by 10pm so I think bringing the time I go to sleep back one hour each night should be a good strategy.

This is a long one!

Tuesday’s Training – Am: 10*400m (ish) road loops with 400m jog rec. Pm: 35 mins slow

Mileage – 16 miles

My blood is changing. This always happens after 4 days down from altitude and last usually until the 7^th day down. And this is the reason why I felt do tired today. I got a great sleep of 10 hours last night and woke up feeling very groggy. I had an energy bar and coffee and spent a while trying to psyche myself up to get out the door and run. I jogged half a mile and then stretched for a while and then finally headed out again for a 3 mile warm up. I originally wanted to go to the track to get the workout done but once I looked up online that it cost £4.80 ($8) to get into the stadium I quickly changed my mind and decided to find somewhere on the roads to do it. I ended up just doing it around the block that AC’s sister lives on as it turned out to be just over 400m long. There were 4 pretty tight turns on the loop but the workout was going to be used just to get my legs back a little and try feel a bit better after a long day’s travel the day before. The first rep was pretty tough as I felt like I was just trying to start the ignition. I felt ok though once I had got through a couple of reps and got through the 10 reps without too much hassle from pedestrians or builders. The first rep was 73 secs and I brought that down to 68 secs by the last rep. Once I was done with the warm down, I stretched a bit and then had a nice hot shower which led to me resting in front of the TV for a while.

I got a call from AC at around 4pm and it turned out to be one of our friends Mark (who I’ve raced since I was 13) so I headed up to Illegal Jack’s and we sat and chatted for a bit. The restaurant was jammed full as AC had put on a free burrito day to raise awareness of what his product is. It was great to see so many people there and I’m sure it will have a great affect on his future business. After talking for a while, got onto the topic of the good athletes that we used to race against and how they had all disappeared. It ended up being that there was only Mark, myself and one other runner (out of the male athletes) who were still running from when we were juniors. It was pretty sad actually and a shame as I certainly wasn’t the best of the athletes when we were going through the ranks. Guys from all over Scotland would regularly beat me and now they have mostly all quit the sport. We walked down the road after a while as I had to get on with another run. I got to the apartment and got changed but was feeling very tired when I stepped out the door. I have been doing a lot of longer runs (up to 3 hours) during the marathon build up yet this 35 minute run was by far the longest feeling run I have done in a long while. I was so sluggish that I couldn’t even make it to 40 mins. I should have maybe taken the evening off but I still wanted to do something as exercise helps with getting over jet lag. AC’s sister was home when I got back so once I had showered we walked over to Illegal Jack’s for some dinner. It was good to see that it was still busy so we grabbed some food and sat at the window and people watched for a while. Mouse, AC’s sister, went home after a while and I stayed in case AC needed any help with anything but ended up just eating some more. My appetite is insatiable when I am tired so a beef quesadilla helped with that and then I just sat around reading the paper while I waited for AC to be finished. The staff had done really well with hw busy it was so AC wanted to take them out for a night so we went back to the apartment quickly so AC could shower. When we got back, the staff had all started drinking and were trying to force me to take shots of Jaigermeister but I was having none of it. I’ve not drunk any alcohol since New Year’s eve so I wasn’t about to end that streak a week before my big race. I wanted to stay awake as long as possible tonight as that is one of the recommendations we got from the UKA doctors when travelling to Asia on how to ease the effects of jet lag (Go to bed late and wake up late). I stayed with them at the restaurant until 1 am and then headed back when they went to the clubs. After watching some programs on my computer, I put my head down (at 2 am) and fell right asleep.

Monday’s Training – Am: Travelling to UK Pm: 52 mins very slow.

Mileage - 7 miles.

I’ve never been a good sleeper when it comes to air travel and last night was really no different. My problem is the length of my legs. I can never get comfortable because my knees are always pressed up against the seat in front and then my bum gets numb as I don’t have much cushioning there. I thought I had hit the jackpot though when we were taking off as it looked like I had the only seat on the plane with a free seat beside it. This always helps as I can stretch my legs out into the space beside me. Once we were up in the air though, the old lady 2 seats along went and grabbed her granddaughter and had her sit beside me. She was tiny so that wasn’t too bad but she was curled up on the seat so she was kicking me and moving around all night so that made sure I couldn’t get a decent stretch of sleep. I just had a bunch of 20 minute naps really.

We arrived at Heathrow around 1.30pm so I had a couple of hours until my connecting flight. I went and grabbed a sandwich and coffee and tried to relax a little bit but it felt better to stretch my legs out a bit as they had been cramped up for so long. At 3.30pm, I got on the plane to Edinburgh and slept the whole way up. I was surprised to see that my bag arrived right away (it normally gets lost somewhere) so I got onto the bus into town and headed over to Illegal Jack’s to meet AC and get the keys for his sister’s apartment (I would be staying with them for a couple of nights). After a quick reunion, I headed over to the apartment and headed out for my run. Needless to say, I didn’t feel too good. I actually headed off at a normal pace only to realise that I was really tired and I needed to slow the pace right down so I basically shuffled for the next 50 mins and tried to expend s little energy as possible. It was a gorgeous evening so I headed down to Holyrood Park where there were lots of people out running and doing things in the park. I headed back through The Meadows and again, there were lots of students out there relaxing and hanging out. I got back to the apartment and did some stretching to try and loosen up a bit. I showered and headed over to Illegal Jack’s to grab some dinner. I was pleasantly surprised to find both AC and his sister sitting waiting for me so AC grabbed us some of the freshly made chilli and then I washed it down with a beef burrito. We sat and chatted for a little while before it was time to close up so we went through to the back as AC had to do the cashing up and the staff had to clean the front of house. AC tried his best to explain Twitter to me but I still don’t really get it. Apparently there is so much more to it than just simple updates and AC is taking advantage of this to try and publicise his business as much as possible. We ended up heading back to the apartment after 9.30pm sometime and then just sat and chatted for a little while. I was slipping in and out of sleep whilst I was lying on the couch so decided to go to bed at 11.30pm and fell right asleep.

Sunday’s Training – Am: 10 mile tempo followed by 12*1 min hard, 1 min easy fartlek. 49.12 (4.56, 4.58, 4.57, 4.56, 4.55, 4.54, 4.55, 4.53, 4.50, 4.52) Pm: 34 mins easy

Mileage – 26 miles

I woke up at 6 this morning as I wanted to get on with the training before it got too hot and windy. I had an English muffin and coffee and waited tried to do a cross word while I waited for Julie to wake up. We headed out a little later than I wanted as I found a bunch of my videos that I made when I was at the Olympics. The videos didn’t work on my last computer so it was great that they were working now. I went for a half mile jog so I could get some stretching done before heading out for the workout. I warmed up for 3 miles and started to do my drills and strides. I was feeling a little tired but it was more of a mental foggy tired than a physical tiredness. I strapped on my racing shoes, took my t-shirt off and I was ready to go. Greg had planned for me to do a 15 mile tempo but his last advise to me was that if I was feeling good that I should stop short and if I didn’t feel good, keep going. The thinking around this being that if I was feeling good, I may leave the race out on the road but if I didn’t feel good, I would be going slow enough that I wouldn’t be killing myself. I didn’t really want to do a really long tempo anyway as I had done one last week so once I knew I felt ok, I decided upon just doing 10 miles at a decent pace and then a short fartlek afterwards.

The tempo itself was fine. It wasn’t super quick but I felt relaxed and able to pick the pace up when I needed so I was happy with the way I was feeling. I wanted to start slightly slower and pick it up as I went through the miles so that went as planned. Julie was out there with me on the bike and handing me my drinks every 3 miles. I had a bit of a mishap with my energy gel as I had taped it to my bottle and when I ripped it off the bottle (the top of it was taped to the bottle so that when I ripped it off, it would be open and ready to go) I guess I didn’t rip it right because it still wasn’t open. I squeezed it as hard as possible and the gel went shooting out all over the road. There was only a tiny bit left in the pack so I sucked that out and washed it down with some energy drink. I finished the tempo feeling fine and relaxed so I stopped for a second, wiped my face and head down (it was pretty warm), took some more liquid on and then jogged for half a mile before getting into the fartlek. I was flying on the 1 minute efforts so I was happy I was able to do that section of the workout well as I thought I would be tired. I managed to cover 4 miles and then stopped and changed my shoes and headed back for a 3 mile warm down.

Once I got back I had to get showered and changed really quickly as it was already 10.50am and we had to be at church at 11am. The shower and changing was no problem but trying to get some breakfast down was the hard part. Luckily Julie was already to go so she made me a smoothie with frozen blueberries and strawberries, probiotic yoghurt, apple juice and some vanilla protein isolate powder. I then grabbed a bottle of water and a bowl of cereal for the car. I couldn’t get the smoothie down quickly as it was so cold and I was getting some major brain freeze. We drove over to the church where all of Julie’s family were already and waiting for us.

The rest of the day was pretty relaxing as we just sat around and chit chatted (and I tried to nap unsuccessfully). I ended up heading out the door again at 3.45pm to get a slow 5 mile run in. I felt fine but still just took it very easy. I got back and showered and then spent a little while repacking my bag. It now closed up fine so I printed off my boarding my passes and headed downstairs to have some dinner before heading to the airport. Julie took me to the airport but she drove around the airport while I checked my bags in case they were too heavy and I would have to take something out of it. They were fine so she headed back up the road to Flagstaff. I always hate saying goodbye to Julie as I start to miss her right away. I have done a lot of travelling and I’m usually fine but when the trip is 2 weeks long, I really miss her. It actually really kicks in when I land in the other country. Last year for the World Half marathon champs it was really bad as I took the exact route through London that we had taken the year before when she came over for a couple of weeks. It just reminded me of what a good time we had had and how much I wanted her around. I don’t really do too many long trips anymore so I guess it’s not too bad.

I got onto the plane and although I had already eaten dinner 3 hours before, I ate again and it wasn’t half bad. A cous cous salad and some pasta was just what I needed as I watched the film 2012 and then spent the rest of the night trying to sleep.

Saturday’s Training – Am: 80 mins easy Pm: 34 mins easy

Mileage – 17 Miles

I got up pretty late today after going to bed pretty late last night so it felt good to sleep in a little bit. I had my coffee and toast outside with Julie’s parents, Grandma and her brother, Mike while Julie kept sleeping. I forgot how nice the weather is in the morning in Phoenix before the sun starts to blast everything. I headed out the door around 10am and ran towards South Mountain as there are a bunch of trails that wonder around the foothills area. It was nice just to switch off and zig zag around the sandy paths and have a little quiet oasis so close to a big city. I wasn’t feeling great but after about 30 mins I started to perk up a bit. By 45 mins I realised that I should either turn around or head off on a trail that would cut across to the neighbourhoods. I went for the second option and ended up at the top of a hill with no trail to continue down to street level. I ended up stopping the watch and carefully walking down the steep hill face as this was no time to practise my hill running descending. I was now stuck on a drainage ditch behind everyone’s garden so I just followed it around until I got to a space in the houses and hopped over the fence to the street. I had no clue where I was but knew which general direction to take so after about 5 mins of running I came out at a main road and found my way back onto a route that I knew. I decided to finish the run at 80 mins and went to the back of the house to cool off in the pool. It was a nice temperature but I wish it had been a little colder. Julie then arrived back from her run so we both had showers and got ready to do some chores around town.

It took us a couple of hours to get everything done (emissions test for the car, buying blister bandages for my trip home, going to the shoe store) and I was getting tired so when we got back we lay down on the big couches in front of the TV and relaxed for an hour. This wasn’t a great way to start feeling good for my second run as I didn’t want to pull myself off the couch and go run in the sweltering heat. I got changed, dressed my blisters and headed out the door. Almost immediately I could feel the bandages move around so my feet were a little uncomfortable. I was supposed to run for 50 – 60 mins but I cut it down to 35 mins as I was tired and it was really hot. There was a strong breeze though so that helped to cool me down as I ran out on the sandy reservation.

I quickly got showered and changed and then we headed out to the church Luau that Julie’s parents had helped to organise. It took a little while for the food to be served but it was great once it did. Teriyaki chicken, Kaluha pork, rice, coleslaw, fruit salad and a whole assortment of desserts made my stomach happy. There were various acts on the stage, raffles and competitions and then once it was all over, we helped to break everything down and then take the grandma’s back to the house. Julie and I sat and talked to them for a while but then I headed up to bed when it was 10pm as I was getting pretty tired and I needed to get up early in the morning.

Sorry for the delay

Hi Folks,

Sorry I haven't posted anything for a few days but I have kept up with writing the training on my computer and will post all of it from Sunday to Tuesday once I get a chance to either transfer it to a computer thats linked to the internet or when I can get my computer online. I'm glad to be back in Scotland and happy to see that the weather is good. I'm just waiting for my body to get over the 7 day hump that it goes through when you come down from altitude. Speak to you all soon.

Lemon

4/9/10

Friday's Training - Am: 70 mins easy Pm: 55 mins easy

Mileage - 18 Miles

I took today as a very easy so that I could recover well from yesterday's workouts. I felt pretty tired in the morning when I met up with the guys so I was more than happy just to plod along for 10 miles. When I finished, Greg gave me the bottles I would be using for the marathon (they're lab bottles that have squirt straws coming out the top) and some calf sleeves from SLS3 (they had sent a bunch to the team to test out). Once I got home I spent most of my time doing washing and organising stuff before I would pack it all up for the trip back home. There was so much stuff I had to put in as I dont have any of my recovery tools in the uk. The Massage stick, tennis balls and stretch rope didn't take up much space but my foam roller certainly did. Once everything was clean and dry I packed up my bag with the intention of repacking it all on Sunday before I left Phoenix. I had a 30 min nap and then answered an email interview for Athletics Weekly. After finishing off my coffee I cut my hair down really short so that it would still be fairly short come marathon day. This meant that I had to clean up the bathroom afterwards but I can never seem to get rid of all the hair that gets everywhere. I headed out for my second run on the trail and I was glad that it was nice and warm outside. It was still windy but the temperature made the run pleasant. After getting back, I quickly showered and headed over to Julie's work to pick her up as we were heading straight down to Phoenix from there. We picked up a buffalo chicken pizza on the way and made it down the mountain safe and sound.

4/8/10

Thursday’s Training – Am: 4*2 mile with 4 mins rec. 9.40, 9.37, 9.34, 9.25 Pm: 59 mins easy

Mileage – 25 Miles

I hadn’t realised until I was going to bed last night that Greg had texted me to say that we would be going down to Sedona for the workout as the weather was supposed to be decent and there were a bunch of others doing a workout there also. I was relieved about this as I was going to have to do the session on Trina’s loop and it can get pretty monotonous. I then remembered that instead of doing two big loops for each rep I would now be doing 8 laps of the track for each rep! After all the marathon training I have been doing my mind has adapted to this and 10 mins of running really isn’t too boring. I met up with Martin at 8am and we headed down to Sedona and met the others at the track. We warmed up with Brett and then headed down to the track to get on with our drills and strides. Brett and Martin were running 2*2miles and the 2*1 mile so I thought I would maybe have some company for my 4*2 mile but they were to run much faster than I was so they started their workout while I finished of getting ready. Greg didn’t want the session to feel that hard and wanted me to be relaxed the whole way so he just wanted me to run 4.50 miles with the option of picking it up on the last rep. I was pretty tired when I woke up this morning but I felt fine once I got running and the pace felt pretty easy so that was a good sign as the last week of training has been pretty intense (3 workouts in the last 5 days with another big one set for Sunday). Getting through the first 2 reps was fine but after that was when I changed my mindset and started to imagine the London course and how I want to feel at specific points. I know it will start to feel hard on the later stages of the race so I pictured myself relaxing and feeling strong as I passed the 22 mile mark. On the last rep I was aerobically fine but my legs were starting to feel a little more tired as I picked up the pace. I could see myself running down Birdcage Walk and then turning onto The Mall and running fast down the last 200m of the race. It was good to finish after 32 laps of the track. The one thing that made a difference today was the weather. There was only a slight wind but the temperature was up so it felt good to get some rays on the skin and not having a cold wind whipping through my body. I had a quick word with Greg about the workout on Sunday (we will have to assess how I feel before I do it and really listen to my body to see if it recovered enough to hit a long hard tempo again) and then joined the guys on the warm down. I finished up and got some stretching done and then we headed back up the road. Just as I was digging into some food, Mark Woods called me from Scotland for an interview for Sunday’s paper (I think Scotland on Sunday) and then I tried to sleep. No success! For the life of me I couldn’t get to sleep so I just lay down to give my legs a rest before my next run.

I also got the good news from my mum that the custom made Oakley’s that Oakley were making for me had arrived so I would be picking them up from her once I get back to Scotland. I am leaving for Scotland on Sunday and will be in Edinburgh for a couple of days before I head to St Andrews to stay at Ronnie’s house so I can just focus on getting over jet lag and getting my final preparations done before the race. I will be heading down to London on the Thursday before the race and will be doing some press obligations on the Friday as well as making an appearance at the Mizuno stand at the marathon expo.

I had booked a massage for 6pm so I headed out the door at 4.30pm and went up to Buffalo again and got 3 laps done and headed back down the trail to finish off 10 miles. It wasn’t without incident though. With about a mile to go, a young couple were running with their dog off the leash (a fully grown boxer) and the moment the dog spotted me, it headed straight for me at a full sprint. Luckily I have had to deal with this kind of situation before and I have no problem hurting a dog before it gets a chance to take lumps out of me. I ran hard towards the dog and jumped right in its face right before it started to jump and I pushed it onto its side. It then growled and came back at me, which just prompted me to give it a swift kick in the head. Job done…the dog ran off. It didn’t stop the girl from screaming at me about how the dog is friendly and it would have never hurt me. I reminded her that it charged at me and just headed off the trail. I think her boyfriend knew I did the right thing as he grabbed his girlfriend and told her to calm down. I just didn't want to run the marathon with half a calf! Anyway, I got back in just under an hour and headed straight into the house as I needed to head over to the other side of town to get a massage. I had the time to write a note to Julie to tell her I would take her out for dinner and then jumped into the car. My legs felt ok but my calves were a little tight and my glutes were still a little locked up so I asked the lady to concentrate on those. Once I got out I headed over and bought Julie some flowers and then headed back to the apartment to pick her up. She was all dressed up and looking great so we drove over to Black Bart’s Steakhouse and had a great meal. I wanted to take her out as this was going to be our last night alone together before I head back over to the UK for a fortnight. All in all, it was great night and we had a really nice time. We are heading down to Phoenix tomorrow to stay at Julie’s parent’s house until Sunday as both her grand mothers are in town.

4/7/10

Wednesday’s Training – Am: 87 mins very easy Pm: 40 mins easy

Mileage – 18 Miles

I had a good nights sleep after going to bed early last night so I was hoping to feel really good today. I headed out to the Campbell Mesa trail again as surprise surprise, it was really windy again! I got off to a really slow start as the trailhead is uphill into the wind and I basically kept this pace for the rest of the run. This was my original idea as I have a hard workout tomorrow and I needed to recover from yesterday. It was nice just to plug in my ipod and just shuffle along for close to an hour and a half. I was still being blown about but I really wasn’t too bothered as I was pretty switched off. I need some days like this so that I can have lots of energy for the next day. It actually felt like a track season easy day. The hardest part was actually doing my drills after the run as I was being blown about the road. From the trail I headed over to the shops to pick up a few groceries before heading home to make some scrambled eggs with ham, mushrooms and red peppers and some fresh French loaf that I bought. It really filled me up so I would need a little while to digest the food before napping so I made a call to my coach in Scotland, Prof. Ron Morrison and my former FSU team and house mate, Luke Gunn (he and his girlfriend Hannah England are up in Mammoth Lakes doing some pre track season training). I was good to catch up with both of them and talk training for a little while. Once I got off of the calls, I fell right asleep and woke up an hour later.

After playing around on the computer for quite a while, I finally got out to do my second run. As usual I headed up the trail to Buffalo Park as I was just doing an easy 6 miles. Right when I got to the start of the park I met some old steeplechase rivals and stopped and talked to them for a while (Pieter Desmet of Belgium and Ben Bruce of the Oregon track team). They’re both opening up their season at the next Stanford meet and I must say I was little jealous that I wouldn’t be hitting the track again for a long while. After talking to them for about 5 minutes I headed back off on my run and it went by pretty quickly. It was still windy but I was really just switching my mind off for the run so I didn’t notice it too much. I got back and did some drills, strides and stretching and then quickly got showered and changed and drove to Julie’s work to pick her up as we were going over Picazzo’s to meet some friends for dinner.

We had a lovely dinner with my RCIA friend Jason Wolfe (the nutter who is running the Rim to Rim to Rim of the Grand Canyon in a couple of weeks) and his wife, Aerie and their 2 little kids. The kids were really funny and very well behaved and we just had a nice time chatting and relaxing for a bit. We headed back to the house after dinner and watched an episode of Billy Connolly’s World Tour of New Zealand and then Julie was starting to fade pretty quickly so we just got ready to bed and fell asleep nice and early.

For those of you in the UK looking for a track 10km in the summer, there is going to be one at Meadowbank Stadium on June 6^th. There are very few track 10km opportunities in the UK and I’ve seen a lot of complaints about this issue online so here is a perfect opportunity to run one during the thick of the track season. Meadowbank can be a very fast track when the weather is good so hopefully there will be a good turnout for the event. It is open to everyone and there are a bunch of Scots already signed up and they are hopefully going to attract the Eritreans to the event so you can expect the event to be won close to 29 minutes.

4/6/10

Tuesday’s Training – Am: 24*200m with 200m rec. Pm: 66 mins easy

Mileage – 22 Miles

Martin and I drove down to Sedona for the workout this morning. Martin was just running easily s he has his workout but with the wind being lower in Sedona and the temperature higher, he wanted to run down there instead of suffering through a run in Flagstaff. We got to the track around 9am and got our usual warm up run in. As I went through my warm up drills and strides while Martin ran around the track. For some reason I felt fine on the drills but just not really up for a speed workout as I knew it was something I hadn’t done for a while and I knew I wasn’t going to be that good at it as this stage of my training. I took the first 3 reps pretty easy and then averaged around 31 secs for the rest of the workout. This was a strange feeling as I have been doing this workout since I was 16 and have always been able to run 30 secs for all the reps. I guess that’s marathon training for you! The wind couldn’t decide which way it was going to blow today so I kept having to change the direction of my reps. There was also another athlete at the track going through some hurdle drills very nicely and it was only once I was going for my warm down that I realised it was Dominique Arnold who has the USA 110m hurdle record of 12.90. I think he retired a few years ago so I guess he was just going through the paces again.

When I got back to the house I fell asleep for 2 hours. It felt so good to get a nice long nap and get some good recovery for my second run. I had some coffee and popped down to the post office before heading out the door and up to Buffalo Park for the run. Needless to say that it was windy again but I am really getting used to it now on the route that I take. It pushes me up the hill at the start and then knocks me back from the 0.4 to 1.5 mile mark of the 2 mile loop and then I am against it for the 2 miles back to the apartment. I was doing 10 miles for the evening run and so I started off very easy and then after 4 miles picked the pace up every 2 miles until I was running at a really good pace. This was the best way to do it as I was still feeling a little sluggish after my nap. It meant that I felt great striding down the trail to finish off the run although I couldn’t really take my mind off how sore my hands were as I had forgot to put gloves on and the wind froze them up. Julie got home just after me and we quickly had some left overs before heading out to a meeting we had.

We got to bed nice and early which felt great as I was already getting tired when we got back from our meeting.

4/5/10

Monday's Training - Am: 71 mins easy

Mileage - 10 Miles

I had a nice recovery day today and ended up doing hardly anything all day. Martin and I drove over to Campbell Mesa (easily the most complicated trail system i've ever been on) and ran there as it was really windy outside and we wanted to be as shaded as possible. My legs felt fine this morning with no stiffness or aches from yesterday so that was another great sign that my legs will be ready for the marathon distance in just a few weeks. Both Martin and I didn't want to get out of the car because the wind was so strong that it was almost singing outside! We got on our way and even in the trees it was pretty blustery. It was a strange run as the time didn't really pass by that quickly. I thought it must have been an hour of running when I looked at my watch but it was only 45 mins. I have still never run on these trails on my own as I think I would get lost. My mum visited last year and I told her to go out and back on the dirt road rather than get on the trails as she would probably get lost. Well...3 hours later we found her coming over the top of the hill after she had run round in circles trying to find her way back to the car! I spent much of the rest of the day napping and lazing about the house. I always feel guilty when I do this as I know Julie is at working hard all day and i'm doing nothing at home.

I decided to take the evening off as I had done a lot of miles yesterday and I have a speed workout tomorrow so I wanted to rest my legs a bit. I was feeling pretty tired anyway so a nights rest would be good for me. For dinner I grilled up eggplant, zuchinni, peppers and mushrooms and threw them in with some linguine and some left over ham from the weekend. It was just what I was needing as I had been craving pasta for a few days. We spent the rest of the night relaxing in front of the TV and heading to bed pretty early.

4/4/10

Sunday's Training - Am: 18 Mile Tempo Pm: 45 mins very easy

Mileage - 28 Miles

Weekly Mileage - 152 Miles

Today began at 5am as I was trying to replicate what I would do on marathon morning by getting up early, having a decent breakfast and be ready to start warming up at 8am. On my actual race day I will get up probably 4 hours before the race start (5.45am for the 9.45am start in London) and have a full size breakfast to get my energy stores full before I start the race. I didn't get to bed until midnight last night so I only got 5 hours of sleep but that is fine as that often happens before races with the early starts. I felt bad getting up that early because Julie's brother, Mike, was sleeping in the living room and I had to get the coffee ready, make some toast and oatmeal. I was making a little bit of a noise and he woke up and talked to me for a little bit before drifting back off to sleep. I left the house just before 7am and headed to Starbucks to read a little bit and get a double espresso before heading over to Lake Mary Rd for the workout. I met Greg, Ian and Paige there and with the wind being as strong as it was we decided to drive to the 15 mile mark and run the course backwards. I was going to run to the 3 mile mark and then turn around and run another 6 miles back. It actually didn't matter what we did because the wind was so strong and swirly that I was getting hit from every side for almost the whole run. The only mile I didn't run against was the very first one and it was slightly downhill so that was nice and quick (5.02) to get the workout started.

Getting ready to start

The next mile was against the wind and mostly up the steepest hill on the whole route so the 5.21 next mile wasn't unexpected. Greg drove behind me for the workout so that he could hand me my drinks every 3 miles so he pulled up alongside and said just to roll with the punches. If it is windy, don't fight too hard, if its hilly, don't worry about that mile being slow. This was good advise as I could have got very frustrated with how I was being pushed about by the wind. I hit a little bad patch at 8 miles but it was only because my lower back tightened up a little so my hamstrings got a little sore but after I got past the 10 mile mark I felt fine again.

Catching up to Paige

Greg wanted me to run steadily for the first 12 miles and then run hard for the last 6 miles. He said the point was to try and empty the tank and then try to continue to push on at that point. Its like getting to the 20 mile point in the mile and then run hard for the last 6 miles. As Steve Jones says "a marathon is just a Sunday long run with a 6 mile race at the end". Doing this was mentally good for me because it broke the workout up and I could concentrate on just cruising and then running hard for 30 mins at the end. I turned around at the 12 miles and got straight into a good rhythm. Greg handed me an energy gel which was a new one I was trying with caffeine in it and unfortunately it was really really thick and I couldn't really swallow it easily. It also got all over my hands and face and it just made a mess soI decided never to use that one again. I couldn't get my gloves back on as my hands were like glue at this point. After getting up the hill and heading back down and then up again onto the plateau that runs parallel to the Lake I started to feel really good and was moving well. I really wanted to push it hard but there was a strong cross wind and it was tough to really drive my legs quickly enough to run really fast. My 17th mile was good as it was downhill and shaded from the wind but then I turned into the wind on the one mile where I really wanted to run fast (the last one). Greg started shouting a lot to just really pick it up and that there was only a few minutes of running left. This helped a lot but then all of a sudden as I cleared the area with the trees and I got blown straight into the middle of the road! That was 5 meters sideways and I had no power to stop it. Greg started shouting more and I just picked the pace up as much as I could. I finished the 18 miles in 1.34.21 which ended up being an average of 5.14s which was good as it was so windy and I was at 7,000ft. I can't wait until I get to run in still conditions! My legs felt fine and aerobically I felt good so that told me that my strength is there. Greg was pleased because my form never broke and even on the last mile when I was pushing hard, my legs were still picking up and in full sprint mode.

I drove back to the apartment and quickly showered as we were all heading out for a lunch buffet at Josephine's. The food was so good and I quickly put the 6 pounds back on that I had lost during the run. Julie's family left soon after lunch so Julie and I tried to nap on the couch but we weren't very successful. We just lazed about for a while and then I headed out for a very slow 6 miles on the trail. I got back and logged the training for the day and was happy that I got through my highest mileage week ever unscathed and feeling good. A dinner of leftovers from yesterday and watching a film got me very tired and prepared for a very good night's sleep.

4/3/10

Saturday's Training - Am: 69 mins easy Pm: 41 mins easy

Mileage - 16 Miles

Today was a very easy day as my big workout for the week would be tomorrow. Originally I was supposed to do the 18 mile tempo today but with the wind really picking up this week, we pushed it back a day (so everything next week go back a day also and that fits perfectly with my travel plans back to the UK as now I don't have to do a hard workout the day I step off the plane). It was very windy today and I did both runs at Buffalo Park as this would force me to go nice and slow. I did drill and strides after both runs to keep my legs awake for tomorrow. I usually find that if I have 3 days easy in a row that my legs aren't as responsive when it comes to a workout because they haven't done anything hard for a few days.

The day itself was relaxing as I ran a few errands in the morning/afternoon and then Julie's family arrived for the easter celebrations. Julie cooked a big ham, an apple compote, green beans and Lorie brought up some great potato salad for us. THis was all ready for when I got back from my second run so I quickly showered and we all sat down and ate together. My eating plans were thrown off a little (I wanted to replicate what I would do the day before the marathon) as I had breakfast/lunch at 11am and lunch/dinner at 4.30pm. I would have preferred to move everything back a couple of hours and get another meal in but with everything that was going on today it just wasn't possible. Julie and I left at 6pm to go to the church and get ready for my baptism. The rest of the family met us there at 7pm when the service started. It was a great evening and it was really nice to have Julie's family there for the baptism. It would have been nice if my family to be there but its a bit of a long journey from Scotland to Flagstaff! When we got back, we dug straight into the cake that Julie had made (we all gave up sweets as part of lent and i'm continuing this until after London but I had to celebrate with a big slice tonight). We didn't end up getting to bed until 12am (the service didn't end until after 10pm) so I wasn't going to get much sleep as I was getting up at 5am to prepare for the morning's workout.

4/2/10

Friday's Training - Am: 92 mins easy Pm: 65 mins easy (3 miles of 100 strides hard/100 strides easy)

Mileage - 24 Miles

Today was a little crammed to say the least. I got up at the usual time and headed out the door just after 8am to get my 90 minute run in. I took a new route on the roads, out to the very south of town and did a nice loop around a very picturesque lake. It had some huge homes dotted around its edge so I figured this is where all the wealthy people like to live. I headed back through Country Club and the run had been fairly easy until I hit the 10 mile point. The rest of the run was a long slow climb while I battled against the wind. I was going to do a bunch of strides during the run but there would have been no point against the wind. I settled for doing them during my second run. I got home and did some drills and stretches and chowed down on some granola with a batch of fresh strawberries that I bought yesterday. This put me right to sleep and I woke up 90 minutes later feeling very refreshed. I made some coffee and relaxed for another hour before I headed out for my second run at 1.30pm. I had to get out early as I had a massage at 3pm.

I felt pretty good on the run and broke it up by doing 3 miles in the middle alternating between 100 strides hard and 100 strides easy. This made my legs perk up a bit and feel a little more snappy on the very soft dirt trail I was on. Yesterday's snow didn't really mess too much with Buffalo Park or the trail leading up to it from the house so thats where I did the run.

I quickly got changed, grabbed a bagel and my protein drink and headed downtown to get a massage from Dana. It turned out that I really needed it as my legs felt fine but I mentioned to her that my glutes were feeling a little nervy and so she got right to work. My back was locked up and that was making my glutes tight also so she got right in there with her elbows and forearms and got some really good work done. It was a very tough session for me. Lots of wincing and gritting of teeth but as usual Dana got me to relax so she could ease things out. i left there feeling great and went straight to the store to buy a 20 pound bag of ice so I could take an ice bath. Because our shower runs out of hot water very quickly, I fumbled into some clothes (I could really bend my legs after being in the bath) and drove over to the gym to have a long hot shower. I came out tingling and this felt so good. I got some more groceries on the way back and quickly made some pasta and again we finished off a whole loaf of fresh bread in one go. I managed to finish dinner this time without having to take it in the car with me. Julie and I headed over to church for the Veneration of the Cross (which was a very relaxing and peaceful service) and then drove home to relax for the rest of the night.