The power of setting goals...

In honour of the marathon runners toiling in the unusually fierce Scottish sun across town I felt like going for a longer run today and set off in the opposite direction from normal. I did a larger than usual lap of the park, around 3 miles, followed by a regular lap at 2 miles, and then a short jog past the pond (where model boat enthusiasts do battle for territory with the swans and ducks every Sunday).

One of the nice things about running in Edinburgh as that other runners nod and smile and say hello. It's just a more relaxed place all round than London. Shame there's hardly any IT work here....


So my run today totalled 5.78 miles in 58m:27s. It's the longest run I've done since I did the Hampton Court 10k for Cancer Research last September.


One of the reasons I wanted to set a running target for this year was to try to do longer runs and start working towards doing a 10 mile race or a half-marathon next year. Seems to be working so far - my average run in May was more than 3.6 miles compared with just over 2 earlier in the year.


So in May I managed to clock up over 62 miles ! I think this chart shows what setting a goal and telling people about it can do for your motivation !


At the end of May I've run 166.7 miles (33.3% of the total) with 333.3 to go.

Wall to wall sunshine

A glorious day in Edinburgh on the weekend of the Edinburgh marathon. I spoke to a couple of the runners on the bus back from the airport last night. Really inspiring to hear their stories and their positive attitudes. Both in the 3 to 3h30 range so pretty serious runners. They seem quite comfortable doing 2 marathons a year - amazing.


Did a couple of laps of the park this morning, just over 4 miles. Not quite marathon training distance! But I'm now running 3-4 miles routinely, which is a step forward from last year when 2 miles was my standard. "Your long runs become your short ones" as they say...


Today's run brings my tally for May to 56.4 miles and my total for the year to 160.9. May has been a great month for me - I've been lucky to have been working at home quite a lot which makes running at lunchtime easier. Next month is the wedding and our 3 week honeymoon which runs into July, so fitting in miles is going to be a lot more difficult !

4 miles in the rain

Did 4 laps (= 4miles) at Dulwich at lunchtime. Cool, breezy and wet, but I quite like running in the rain for some reason. I think having the weather to fight against occupies your mind when it might otherwise be busy telling you to "stop", "it hurts", "you've done enough" etc.

I bought my first pair of Reeboks online in 2005 and they sat in the cupboard unused for many months. I wanted to run but I didn't think I could. From the age of 6 months I had asthma, and in those days the thinking was that since asthma attacks often seemed to be brought on by exercise, asthmatics should avoid exercise. Thankfully I grew out of asthma in my teens, but the nagging feeling remained that if I ran for too long the wheezing might come back. And also, I suppose running just seemed a bit, well, boring, compared to the other activities I enjoyed like cycling, hillwalking and ski-ing.

However in 2003 I started playing cricket, a sport I loved when I was a kid, and surprisingly, besides the batting and bowling, I really enjoyed the running around in the field, and I guess that's when I started thinking seriously about taking up running.

Early in 2007 I went out for a couple of short runs in the park opposite my flat in Edinburgh. They were torture, and I didn't run very far, but the important things were that
1. I had convinced myself I could run,
2. I realised I wasn't going to have an asthma attack, and
3. I looked just like another runner - no-one was going to point at me and laugh. Well, no more than normal...

During 2007 I kept thinking in the background about running and then in the autumn several things came together at once - I set myself a goal to run a 10k for charity in 2008, my girlfriend started running, and her sister and brother-in-law who live nearby in London also took it up very enthusiastically. So suddenly I had a goal to achieve, as well as the support network to keep me motivated and get me out running on days when I might have been tempted not to.

30% Complete !

Another 3 miles scampered at lunchtime today, taking me past 150 miles, or 30% complete. Unfortunately it's taken me 40% of the year to reach this point, but I'm definitely catching up.

Non-runners watching the London Marathon or the Great North Run on telly perhaps don't think about how much training goes into preparing for a race - they only think about the effort of running the race itself, and that might not seem much from the comfort of an armchair.

But if you look at typical training plans for novices, it puts running races like those - or running 500 miles in a year for that matter - into perspective:

5k race: 8 weeks training - 50 miles total
10k race: 8 weeks training - 75 miles total
1/2 marathon: 12 weeks training - 210 miles total
Marathon: 18 weeks training - 460 miles total

Bank holiday weekend

Back from a trip to Wales for my friend Jim's 40th birthday party. Managed to fit in 3 miles before I went, and another 3.3 miles today after I got back. Total for the month of May is now over 43 miles, and my total overall is 147.5. 352 miles to go !

Michaela at Practical Action has sent two T-shirts to help spread the Practical Action word while I'm running. Thanks Michaela ! Not much chance of going unnoticed now !

This week I'm working from home again so should hopefully fit in quite a few more lunchtime runs and get some miles in the bank to make up for June and July when I'll be busy with the wedding and the honeymoon !

Rest day

Four days' running in a row - so time for a day off today. The knees and calves start to hurt after a while - more so if I've been running on tarmac or concrete.

Good progress this week - 14 miles since Sunday, and looks like I'll beat my target for May, and do some catching up for the first four months of the year:

Lunchtime run

Working from home today so a quick trip to Dulwich for a run at lunchtime. Two laps of the track = 2 miles, plus a slightly longer lap around the outside of the park. Total 3.48 miles. A breezy showery day. Always nice to go to the park midweek - no recumbent bicycles or distracted parents blocking the track or pedestrians walking four abreast to dodge !

Here's a picture of a run in the park (on a sunnier day earlier this year).

5km today

A big lap and a wee lap round the park in Edinburgh. Just over 3.1 miles. Takes my total for the month to 29.6 miles and for the year to 156 miles.

To hit my target I need to complete an average of 52 miles per month for the rest of the year, or around 13 miles per week. So if I run every 2 days that works out as an average of 3.5 miles per run. And with the best will in the world I'm not going to manage to run every 2 days... life, work, holidays will get in the way, not to mention fatigue !

So I need to aim to do longer runs when I have the time and energy, to compensate for the times when I won't be able - or want - to run.

Challenge rules

OK, the rules of the 500 mile challenge are pretty simple:

1. I have to run a mile or more to add it to my total. Anything less doesn't count.
2. I have to run continuously... no stopping for a rest or a stretch !
3. Distances are measured by plotting my route using this website.
4. Only running outside counts - training, races, running to work, running home (subject to fulfilling the other rules). But treadmill miles don't count (not that I would want to run on one anyway).
5. I keep track of all my runs on a log.

That's it !

Progress so far

The more observant amongst you will have noticed that I've started this challenge several months into the year. So I thought I should give an update on how far I've run already.

This chart shows the current picture:

The blue bars are how far I've run each month and the maroon ones are my target. So as you can see I already have a lot of catching up to do !

I'm hoping that setting up a sponsorship page and wrting this blog will motivate me to get on and do those extra miles.

First post !

OK, I've been planning to commit to this challenge for a while and today's the day ! During 2009 I'm aiming to run a total of 500 miles and get sponsorship to raise funds for a charity I'm personally very commited to, Practical Action.

The charity

Practical Action aims to help communities in developing countries alleviate poverty by making use of simple technology to improve aspects of their day-to-day lives - for example to extract smoke from open fires used for cooking in homes, or install toilets which improve hygiene and eradicate disease.

You can find out more about Practical Action on their website.

The challenge

During the calendar year 2009 I'm aiming to run a total of 500 miles. That includes day-to-day training runs, as well as any races I sign up for. So about 10 miles per week, which might not seem a lot, but sustaining it over a year, and fitting it in around work and personal life, will be hard and I'm going to have to up my mileage significantly if I'm going to achieve it.

As a further incentive to reaching a total of 500 miles by the end of December, for every 1 mile I fall short of the target, I'm going to donate £1 to Practical Action.

If you'd like to support Practical Action by sponsoring my running in 2009, you can do so via my justgiving page.