Following my half marathon at the Royal Parks, Liz and I jetted off to Munich for a well earned rest.  My German language classes helped me to easily order a stein (or two) of beer at the Hofbrauhaus to help us relax.

Virgin London Marathon

Over the few days we were there, Liz and I talked about the possibility of me running the Virgin London Marathon.

Of course, I was still buzzing from my previous run, so I thought I could do the full marathon easily.  Maybe in 2011 I thought.

Liz and I had sent a few emails to charities to attempt to get Gold Bond places just before we went on holiday.  It was pretty late for entries at this stage as the public ballots had been drawn; so I didn’t have any hopes to be honest.

After enjoying our weekend away, we returned to (a much warmer) England and an overflowing email inbox.

One of the emails was from AICR – The Association for International Cancer Research.  After reading my story, they decided to give me one of the places.  Who’da thunk it?!

So yes, it’s official.  I am running in this years Virgin London Marathon on Sunday 25th April.

I have a mountain to climb in terms of fundraising.  If you have any suggestions, please let me know!  I’ve done the first step of creating my Justgiving page.

I’m keeping an old fashioned paper diary this time around – as I will be able to write in it on my long train journeys.  No doubt, I will be blogging when I can.

Wish me luck (and Happy New Year!!)

If you’ve followed me over the last few blog posts, you will know that I’ve had a recurring problem with my soleus muscle.

Books and magazines always preach the same solution – as do all the runners I’ve met. Good footwear. One book, 4 Months to a 4 hour marathon summarised running in bad shoes as “What would you rather drive to work in? A new Mercedes with air con, deluxe stereo and two flat tyres…?”.

Interesting comparison – so I decided it was about time I went and got proper gait analysis. I trotted off to my local SweatShop. I tried several pairs of trainers (I overpronate a lot – incase you are interested) and it was a toss up between three different pairs.

Adidas Supernova Sequence 2

You REALLY can’t worry about the cost. So, I told the helpful shop assistant to not tell me the price, so I wasn’t influenced at all. But in the end, I settled for a pair of Adidas Supernova Sequence 2. On the runs I’ve done so far, they are very comfortable. I really cannot fault them. And luckily enough, they were the cheapest of all those I tested.

Another nugget of wisdom commonly offered is to have several pairs of trainers. 3 pairs in fact. 2 pairs to train in (alternate them between runs, especially if they get wet) and a third race pair. The race pair are broken in on training runs three weeks or so, before the big race. I’ll give it a couple more runs, before I invest in another pair or so.

I certainly need to get another pair when I ramp up my training for the Virgin London Marathon. More about that craziness in my next blog posts.