Verbal Diarleah (The Diary of Leah)

It begins today: the big one; the marathon. Over the next sixteen weeks I will run, for lack of better words, a lot. I’ll run farther than I ever have before.

Ten miles? (blows raspberry) I run you before breakfast.

Thirteen miles? (Rolls eyes) Before lunch.

Twenty-two miles? Now that is the mileage of a marathon runner.

And I will run these miles in the rain, wind and cold that is the British Winter and Spring. Though the days will get lighter, there will doubtless be a few dark runs on the wrong side of 5.00 or 6.00am thanks to work commitments.

Today will be an easy three mile run at between 10:18 and 10:38 per mile. Even this slow pace is slightly difficult for me at the moment because I’ve lost so much fitness since my half-marathon in October. Such is life. I know in a few weeks I’ll be feeling a lot better and it will actually seem slow. The training programme is made up of many slow runs at the 10:30ish pace in order to get use to running the mileage. Easy pace is even slower, around 10:45 per mile; and steady pace is Goal Marathon Pace of 9:21 per mile.

In order to put these paces into perspective, Paula Radcliffe’s personal best (PB) marathon time is 2:15:25 and that’s a pace of 5:10 per mile. Even your average male club runner can run a marathon in 3:00-3:15, which is around 7:00 per mile. My goal is to finish in 4:05 or 4:10. That will be pretty good for a first time.

The first real, long run is 21 March at 15 miles. Between now and then I have done the mileage before, even if only once. Fifteen is virgin territory.

Below is the schedule for this week. I may not blog every time I run; I may save up and write weekly. I will take it as it comes. Originally, Tuesday was a rest day but I shifted the runs up a day due to work commitments on Wednesday and Thursday evenings. The two miles steady will be a 6.00am run Wednesday morning. Oh joy.

So continue to watch this space for updates on my training. With your support I’ll finish the damn thing.