Today is officially the start of my training plan. I have five months to get myself in decent enough shape to attempt to run 26.2 miles. So when I saw this on Pinterest I thought it was rather appropriate. Because during training I'll be accruing hundreds of miles of running as well as hours of strength and flexibility training. So the race itself really is only the last 26.2 miles of this journey.
Over the next couple of months I'll be training for around 5 hours a week, and this will increase steadily after Christmas to around 8 hours a week. As well as the hours of training, I'll be following a nutritional diet (though as training increases I get to eat more :D). There are many things I will not be able to do over this period, the things I am giving up are significant. A few things I am going to have to give up are:
- Late night chips after an evening in the pub
- Cheeky takeaways when I'm too lazy to cook. Especially pizza. No pizza allowed.
- Alcohol on week days (except for very special occasions e.g. Christmas)
- Binge drinking on weekends (not that I ever do this anyway...;))
- Late nights out in the pub or bars
- Sunday morning lie-ins
- Junk food. If it doesn't have nutritional purpose, it cannot go in my stomach.
It may take me a few weeks to fully abide by these rules, but I'll get there. And it will make all the difference come race day, and I'll be very thankful that I trained hard and ate right. So when I start bugging you for sponsorship in a couple of months, please bear in mind the sacrifices I'm making ;)
Time to Marathon: 5 months, 3 days
