3 of the 28 marathons completed and it's time for a couple of months rest before starting over again in January.
As I write I'm nearly recovered from Dublin Marathon (Oct 26th), one that I'll never forget as I managed to beat my PB and creep under 4 hours for the first time. I also got to meet Michael & Carmel O'Reilly from the Irish ME Trust and talk about the treatments and real needs of Irish ME sufferers -click here for more info.
How did Dublin Marathon go? Click here for my race report!
The only disappointment from the trip was the promised features from the Irish Independent and Irish Daily Mirror. I've followed/chased all of these and so far I'm getting a bit of a wall of silence -something that I'm sure my ME followers can relate to in regard to being heard by doctors, government and the media.
Earlier on in the month I had some great runs along the towpath towards Portishead and out towards Nailsea. Training through August and September was a little tough due to the heat but I think that it made a big difference come race day, along with the greater emphasis upon hill and interval training. I had the odd knee niggles but nothing serious, more of a problem was a very heavy cold which caused me to miss my last two runs of training but I got well just in time.
Long Ashton -one of my most regular routes over the summer
Well, I reckon;
- Hill and interval training on the midweek runs
- Training at a higher temp than race day
- Uniterrupted training schedule
- Better recovery emphasis (foam rolling, ice, stretching, calf sleeves)
- Greater intensity and focus on race day (plus morning race start)
What next?
Well I'll still be running twice a week to keep the legs strong and hopefully ensure that it's not such a long road back to fitness when I start up again in January. In truth I'm not sure what time to be aiming for in the next one, I'm not sure I'm really capable of much better than 3.59 hrs but we'll see.
Whilst I certainly expect to be able to run the next 24 in less than 4.5 hrs (providing I train well), I'm not sure that beating a time is the greatest motivation now I've dipped under 4 hours. I know there'll be some tough courses/conditions coming up and I have got an extra race in 2016 for my body to cope with, so taking it steady might be the way to go.
2016 races
Booked in so far are;
#5 - April 3rd - Alexander The Great Marathon - Thessaloniki (Greece)
#6 - June 4th - Stockholm Marathon - (Sweden)
#8 - Oct - possibly Toulouse Marathon (France)
I'm going to be powering down over the next two months so things will go quiet for a bit on Facebook, Twitter and there'll be a joint Nov/Dec blog here.
Thanks so much to everyone who has helped me kick this challenge off in 2015. It's come a long way already with nearly £2500 raised, 500 Twitter followers and 200 on Facebook. I've learnt a lot about running this year and even more about ME from meeting some incredible people in Ireland, Finland and the Czech Rep. Hopefully I've helped Invest In ME a little in their mission to unite research across Europe so far.
It's been an amazing experience so far and I can't wait for the 2016 races. Catch up soon everyone.
www.justgiving.com/mikeseumarathons
