Just a quick update to let you know a few things.

Firstly we've increased our fundraising target to £160 for each charity to try and bring the Beatson and the Accord level with Macmillan.  I have to say thank you so much to everyone who has already donated because the generosity has been overwhelming.  If you haven't done so yet then just click here or come see one of TeamJP3 if you'd like to sponsor by cash rather than card.

Secondly the race packs have come through the letterbox this morning complete with race numbers, ChampionChips and GSR t-shirts.  Only 15 days to go and we're all getting excited!

Lastly, for anyone interested, my exams are going fairly well with 3/4 done so far and the last on Monday.  Lisa had hers today as well and she thinks it's gone well.

Until next time, if you'd like to pass on the word to friends/family/strangers then please don't hesitate!

Stay free,
Joe x

So sang Matt Bellamy, and he was right but maybe I'm getting a bit ahead of myself, still three months to go.  But with the past two week's performances I'm getting worried that I won't be able to keep up a good level of training.  You might have noticed that I'm a run short for each of the past two weeks.  Last week's I've already explained but this week's is a combination of things.

Firstly I was at a party on Saturday that left me worse for wear (to say the least) on Sunday and so I was catching up on the weekend's sleep on Monday morning.  Miss one run.  Making up for this on Tuesday was good but I was disappointed with the outcome. [For details check out The Log which is now annotated]  I did however achieve my first Goal!

The plan was to then head out on Wednesday as per usual but I realised that knowing I'm getting up to run in the morning makes it harder to sleep.  So Wednesday at 07:00 I'd had barely any rest and stayed in bed determined to find some.  Miss two runs.  Same thing Thursday and again on Friday.  On Friday I tried to make up for this by hitting the treadmill which knackered me out more than ever.  Then Saturday provided my weekly run with Lisa which was fine.  I can only hope that I'm more focussed next week, although with a party tonight who knows what will happen?

On the charity side, both Accord and the Beatson have set up accounts with CharityGiving and we're only waiting on word from Macmillan which shouldn't be long now.  We're not expecting any problems but if any should arise we'll sort something out.

Over in The Tunes we've got a new feature: Top Track.  We'll be giving some space to the tune that has given us the best push this week, so head over now and see what done it for Week 4.

Stay free,
Joe.

 

Some more pavement pounding led to a disappointing end this morning.  Don't get me wrong, the run was good, unfortunately I forgot to hit "End Workout" on time and an extra two minutes were added while I was just walking/standing/sitting in the house.  Check it out: Week 2: Run 1

So the analysis bit.  I managed to keep a very even pace for most of the time, and there's only a small dip where I walked for about 50m or so.  My average pace is a lot slower because I forgot to finish on the iPod but based on the first circle on the graph, i was running at 5'10"/km which is faster than my last two runs in comparison.

You may have noticed that I only ran twice last week.  That's because I started on Wednesday rather than Monday, and I skipped Saturday's run in favour of a long lie.  But don't worry, I plan on doing about 4 runs per week and I've set a goal on Nike+ to encourage me to stick to that.

Only a week of rest left for Lisa and Sean and then it's back to the graft.  Wonder when I'll get a holiday...

Stay free,
Joe.

Good morning guys and gals! 

Today marked the start of official training and you can find the results along with all future runs laid out in graph form on The Log.  Just a short run of 2km this morning that I think will be the usual for a couple of weeks until I get my distance legs back.  I can only hope that Lisa and Sean will be getting up in 3 or 4 hours and heading out onto a beautiful beach to pound the sand.  Am I being naive?

As a first run I think it was encouraging.  Based on the average speed, which includes a shameful walk, I should be looking at about the hour mark for the 10k.  Our initial goal was 1hr 15min which was allowing some wiggle room so perhaps I'll surprise myself after these 3 months of training.

Anyway head on over to The Log and have a swatch at the lovely graph produced by Nike+ and then if you'd like to encourage me a bit head over to CharityGiving and shed some of your own pounds!

Stay free,
Joe.