Down to 12 stone which is a good start and I think my optimum weight is going to be somewhere between 11-11.5 stone for when training starts in mid-late January.
Here are my new trainers bought from Easy Runner in Bristol (http://www.easyrunner.co.uk/).
Asics (my usual running brand of choice), £85 proper comfy.
They're really great at Easy Runner as they can record you running on a treadmill ('gait analysis') and play it back to see what sort of trainers will work best. Fortunately, despite the issue with my knee, it seems like I've got no real problems with my running technique, phew!
I'm now up to just over 4 miles per run, three times a week. Two nights of the week are dedicated to weights and cross-trainer work to try and get myself in shape to lengthen the running distance soon.
I'm trying to run on Sunday afternoons at the moment rather than just in the dark on weekday evenings to try to replicate race conditions. Also its just much nicer running when there's people about!
Doing some background reading tonight I found some interesting info about the 28 marathons that I'm attempting!
Below are the races, next year's dates and how many entrants they had last time out.
| Austria | 12th April | 9000 |
| Belgium | 4th Oct | 1279 |
| Bulgaria | 12th Oct | 174 |
| Croatia | 12th Oct | 448 |
| Cyprus | 8th Mar | 500 |
| Czech Rep | 3rd May | 9000 |
| Denmark | 24th May | 10000 |
| Estonia | 13th Sept | 1800 |
| Finland | 15th Aug | 3865 |
| France | 12th April | 40000 |
| Germany | 27th Sept | 22000 |
| Greece | 9th Nov | 8499 |
| Hungary | 11th Oct | 4400 |
| Ireland | 27th Oct | 12000 |
| Italy | 22nd Mar | 15000 |
| Latvia | 17th May | 1300 |
| Lithuania | 13th Sept | 752 |
| Luxembourg | 30th May | 8000 |
| Malta | 22nd Feb | 508 |
| Netherlands | 19th Oct | 12000 |
| Poland | 26th April | 6675 |
| Portugal | 11th Oct | 1000 |
| Romania | 5th Oct | 705 |
| Slovakia | 29th Mar | 739 |
| Slovenia | 27th Oct | 1100 |
| Spain | 26th Apr | 11000 |
| Sweden | 30th May | 12000 |
| UK | Done! | 35000 |
Some of the lower attended races look pretty scary (except Malta), can't say I'm looking forward to Bulgaria or Romania to be honest. Read some reviews and a few of the lower races don't tend to give out water or have any toilets! Also its really hard to find where to register/get your race number the day before, eek! Luxembourg is a night marathon and looks kind of fun though.
Next update in November when I will have upped the training and hopefully done a decent run on my hols in Cornwall and York!
With Prague booked in for May I'm now starting to think about booking one for next October, makes sense whilst I'm feeling up for it and keen to keep up the training/complete lifestyle overhaul. Eenie meanie......
Cheers for your support, drop a few quid into my Justgiving on the right hand side if you feel generous. Invest In ME is an incredible charity which is entirely run by volunteers, they're really on the cusp of a breakthrough with the illness and anything you can spare would be massively appreciated.
Thanks for reading
Mike
