Ok... so this isn't exactly a whole new project, I have been running for 9 months now, and about to run my first half marathon. I have only run one race before, and last summer I was chronically unfit... Like really bad!!
I mean I had been doing some exercise, but having a kick-about once a week didn't really count. I had lost the fitness I once had at the end of my teenage years... many thanks to a diabolical university experience which really took a toll on my fitness... beer and shop value fish fingers every day are not a healthy lifestyle option... even if it is all I could afford.
Anyway, a major lifestyle change (I became a born-again christian 3 weeks before I graduated) and some great people around me have really helped me get a better perspective on life, and after moving to Sweden 2 years ago, my now wife challenged me to run the Göteborgsvarvet, a half marathon around the city. I signed up, and the training plan had started to be formed... I looked for some practice runs, and saw that the Gothenburg midnattsloppet was taking place 2 weeks later... a 10km race held at night. I had never run more than 4km in one go before... so of course I signed up...
Have I mentioned I am a little crazy btw? I like spontaneity, but I also follow though with 99% of anything I agree to (the 1% being dares that involved space travel and fish, don't ask).
So yesterday I did the same... I signed up for a full Marathon. 26.2 miles. 42 Km. My wife told me I'm crazy, I told my self I'm crazy. But if in 9 months I have gone from unfit to running a half marathon in 1hr 50minutes, then in 11 months I know I can run a full marathon, in whatever time it takes.
But I won't just be running for myself, I will be running for charity, a very good charity for a very important cause.
I will be running the Brighton Marathon for 28 Too Many, a charity working to stop the legal (yes I said legal) practise of female genital mutilation (FGM). There are 28 countries in Africa where this is still legal, 28 too many (hence the name of the charity). You can check out their website here.
So this blog will be about running; the techniques, the food, health issues, clothes that help or hinder running, and also about the charity and cause that I am running for. I have made a promise that I will be training in the charity's t-shirt (as long as it is washed, I wouldn't want to contaminate a perfectly nice area of Gothenburg with my 4 days unwashed running gear). There have been books I have read on running, people I follow on Twitter who have inspired me, and people around me that have helped get behind me and back me up, pushing me to do better, and not least my faith that keeps me going in life and provides the rock I lean on.
I still have my other blog, Captain's Blog, where I will write about my job, my faith, and my passions, but this will just be about running, my current project, the marathon and the charity I am running for. I hope that fellow runners and fundraisers will read and comment and share running advice and tehcniques. I am a rookie, with a growing love for running and fitness.
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