It Is Time!!

As Winter fades into a distant memory and Spring approaches like your favorite relative at Christmas as do the months in which my Charity Challenge Year really step into full flow.  As a famous animated monkey once said, 'It Is Time.' (Little reference for my Dad there)

PB's will tumble!

So at long last March has arrived and now the events come thick and fast.  The Winter months saw (as I'm hoping you've already read) some hard training and really getting that base fitness up.  Now its time for me to put all that training into practice and hit the ground running as they say.

The running continues to improve and I'm now running further and faster than ever before.  I'd set myself a target of a 22 min 5 km at the start of the year and by the end of February I had got it down to 23.11!! My 10 km time was tumbling to down to 53 mins and I took 6 mins of my 12 mile TT time, down to 30 mins!! It was all starting to come together in practice and now I'm fully excited and nervous to get into it!

My first event of 2015 (and 3rd overall) is the Longleat Half Marathon.  Now, up until very very recently I'd only ever ran 8 miles.  Over the last few weeks of Winter training I built the long runs up and got as far as 9.6 miles.  Which I was pleased with but I knew I had to run further.

So a week ago on Sunday I took the plunge and attempted my first ever 13 mile run.  I had looked at the figures from all my previous long runs and set myself the target of sub 2 hours.

Stonehenge gets regular visits now!

It all started incredibly well, Id planned a route and knew where I could make time and where I would lose time.  The first 5 miles went without any trouble, as I expected.  In fact it was all very uneventful up until mile 11.  By this time I had already ran 1.4 miles more than ever before and things felt good, pace was good and i was set to bust 2 hours.  Then it happened, I'm not sure what it was but it happened.  My legs just died! It was like someone had removed all the muscle from my legs! No warning, no explanation, just nothing.  I can honestly say the last 1.5 mile of that run was the worst 1.5 miles of my running life!!  I dragged my sorry legs back home in a time of 2.02.34!

Three things struck me!

One - I was absolutely gutted that id missed the 2 hour marker by a mere 2 minutes!

Two - 'Wait a minute,' I thought, 'I've just ran 13 miles!'

Three - That 2 hour barrier is getting smashed in Longleat.

So I was both happy and raging at the same time!

But now the run was under my belt and it was the last part of my Winter training.  Now was the time to concentrate on getting ready for the start of the season!

Obviously I will be blogging on all my races so I'm going to keep this one short.
Id just like to give a big thank you to everyone who has supported me over the last few months and hopefully more so during the season.

Firstly John-Paul at www.triathlonbox.co.uk who's brilliant new triathlon invention will see the end of fighting through a bag or an old perspex box to find what you need prior to a race or during transition.  Go take a look!! Trust me!

Also a big thank you to www.highfive.co.uk for their continued support and quality nutrition post and during training so far.  I hope to carry your support into the season too.
 
Lastly I cannot do a thank you section without thanking my wife Georgie.  She has been so understanding and supportive over the last few months and has really provided me with that extra get up and go.  Without her being onside and being so supportive I would not have got to where I am today - so thank you! I love you!

Don't forget that this is a Charity Challenge and I still need all of you to continue donating, sharing and supporting me on this journey.  So far I have raised an incredible £770! That's all thanks to you and your incredible generosity!  But please don't stop there. Share this until the end of time, text in just one more time.  Remember even if its only £1 it all adds up to a massive final total.

So text KOMS99 followed by your donation (£1 £2 £5 £10 etc) to 70070 it all goes into the pot and towards my final target of £2000!  Also you can visit www.justgiving.com/Martyn-Seddon to donate too.

Thanks again for taking some time out to have a read and even more so for taking the time to text in and raising money for such a worthy cause!