Bad week of training, good week on the fundraising

Still not feeling great which is getting me down a little, suffering with a cold for over a week which has now turned into a bit if a chest infection, so I've not really done any proper running for about 10 days.

There are some positives about however , had a physiotherapy session today on my troublesome toe, it seems the condition is quite early stages and treatable all being well, and given I've had a forced lay off feels fine to be honest.

Also, I advertised on LinkedIn for some corporate sponsorship and got a call from Jonny at Acre recruitment, I've worked with Jonny and Arce in the past when looking for new opportunities. They have offered to sponsor me £150 towards my challenge and pay for a training shirt with the Arce logo and my 10 in 10 challenge details, very happy with that. Acre also are a safety recruitment specialist and have a system called Acre Frameworks for assessing and developing safety professionals soft skills . Just goes to show the power of social media and banging the drum about the challenge
, glad to have Acre on board to help me raise funds for the Amazing Brathay Trust

https://acre.com/

 

 

We've also got a few other bits on the go, Sarah has been very busy making Brathay Trust Key rings, it looks a very pain staking process making them as a lay on the sofa blowing my nose occasionally, my main source of exercise at the moment, Sarah certainly has more patience than me with stuff like that. If you would like to buy one all funds go to Brathay, just £2 each and hand made with great care and attention :)

 

 

Lastly we are in the process of organising a Brathay Charity Night, this will be held at the Queens Hotel in Hyde, they have been good enough to offer us the function room for free on Saturday March 31st which is Easter Weekend, so we are hopeful this will be a good night, got a few ideas at the moment, certainly food, music and beer will be involved.



 





 Hoping my next blog is a bit more positive regarding the training front, starting to feel a little panicked about my lack of miles over the last two weeks.......

Training January 2018 Good Month, ended not so good....

Coming back from the Brathay weekend I returned home feeling much more confidant than I had been on the drive up a few days before. Now I had met everyone and the team etc., I could visualise what the event would look like The only real difference would be our accommodation during the event, which would be shared rather than the luxury of the B&B we stayed in January. We were also asked to submit our race number request, and any room buddy preference. We quickly got the reply back from Aly, I hadn't got my first choice number unfortunately of number 10 (10in10 so seemed the obvious choice), however I was able to secure the number 17 which was my second choice, our wedding date in the Lakes in 2015.

I'd already started a strength and stretching routine following my research, however we now have a much more precise set of strength building exercises and stretches to do from Adam and Katie lead Physiotherapists we met over the weekend.

Following on from running the route in early Jan I have carried on doing a long run Sat morning 16 - 20, some flats and some with hills, followed by increasing my Sunday miles also, currently on 8 milers Sunday morning. I'm lucky I live near the Peak District so I've been able to throw in a particularly brutal route which takes in more climbing over 19 miles than the whole Windermere route does over 26.2 miles. Although I'm really not enjoying going out the day after the long run, so I need to focus on this.

I've entered some training events to keep me focused also.

Wrexham Marathon March 11th
Manchester Marathon April 8th
UK Boston Marathon April 15th
Blackpool Marathon April 22nd

I've had a few struggles which is to be expected, I suffer from something called Hallux Limitus in my right big toes joint (Google it) , which has been playing up a bit, I moved to wearing the Asics 19 trainers we were giving by the sponsors, the different fit really helps, plus some exercise and rock tape helped.

I've now got this bloody cold everyone seems to have, I went running the other night and my heart rate was off the chart, see the above data, a relatively steady run as well.  so I'm resting up, it's given me time to set this blog up....so every cloud

January 12th - 14th 2018 Training Weekend at Brathay Lake District

Once the dust had settled from being accepted into the team for 2018 10 in 10 I began to digest the size of the challenge, I mean how the hell do you train for 10 Marathons in 10 Days, 262 hilly miles...

I'd spent a lot of the summer of 2017 cycling, in fact I really enjoy cycling, I had a new bike this year a Ribble R872 which I love, as well as taking on some awesome cycling challenges, Coast to Coast in a day as well as the epic Wales in a Day in July. I remember during some dark moments on Wales in a Day which is almost 200 miles thinking, can't believe I'm in the 10 in 10 next year! I had a lot of time to think on that ride.

As part of the 10 in 10 programme we are all expected to attend a training weekend in the lakes in January, this is a chance to meet the support teams, including Aly Knowles who'd delivered my news, meet the other 19 runners, and get a feel of what to expect in May, oh yes, and run the Windermere Marathon route we'll be running in May 2018 10 times over.....

When the weekend came around I was a bag of nerves, 10 days all inclusive in Fuerteventura after Chester Marathon in October and a particularly good Christmas and New Year had put a large beer shaped dent in my training plan. I had arranged to meet another 10 in 10 runner at Manchester Piccadilly to offer a lift, Diane Morris, it was nice to have some company for the drive and discuss the road ahead!

We got to Brathay just in time for lunch, great food by the way, so we certainly are not going to go hungry in May. As I looked around the dining room I could see some faces I recognised from my research, other runners taking on the challenge , along with a couple of faces which felt like celebrities to me, Rich Rex, Aly Knowles, Chris Eaton , all previous 10 in 10 runners!! After lunch we checked into our rooms and received our bag of goodies from event sponsors Asics, had a couple of hours to chill out, make a call home etc. The evening was spent meeting other runners and support team ,bit of team building and a relativity early night, Marathon in the morning! before bed I did my first video blog. (Will upload them on here going forward as well as Facebook)

Next morning we were up early, breakfast and out on the road running the route, despite carrying a few extra Christmas pounds I actually got round well. I had a plan to run a slower pace today than I  normally would during a marathon, this was to practice how I would approach day 1 in May. Chris Heaton had provided some good advice around taking it easy on day one, as if you over cook it that could be the end and can't be recovered. I set off running with  other runners Jonathan, Richard and Paul and we had a good pace, probably about 10  - 20 seconds per mile quicker than I planned to run, so I dropped out of the group about 5 miles in and settled into my own pace. I held a steady pace throughout and finished in 3:34 which was still a touch quicker than planned but felt good.

It was surprisingly cold when I finished, so I quickly went to my room to get showered , warmed up and some warm clothes, I then waited at the finish for the remaining runners to finish with a brew and one of the pies Paul had brought along, with a protein shake as well of course. Felt good to get the route done and under my belt.

The Sunday started with a nice cooked breakfast and hearing some more from Brathay , as well as people who have been helped by the charity in various ways, hearing people say thank you for doing what we were doing was quite humbling really, and made me realise this challenge, as huge as it is about so much more than just me. Brathay may not be one of the bigger charities we are used to hearing about , but their impact is as big as anyone's. There are some horrible stories in the news these days, about exploitation of children and young people, the authorities struggle unfortunately to act until something like that has happened, the work Brathay do seeks to support those youngsters , give them the improved self-worth they deserve and stop those stories from happening in the first instance. A lot of this is done from their bases across Greater Manchester, Yorkshire and of course the beautiful Lake District . #Brathay 

10 Marathons in 10 Days.....how did this happen?

Hi, I'm Sean, and the group of people in the main picture on this blog are myself and the other 19 runners who are taking on the challenge of 10 Marathons in 10 Days in the Lake District in May 2018, this year in fact, it's come around very quickly to February 2018 from the relative safety of June 2017 when I first got accepted into the challenge. 

A trip to the lakes in the summer of 2006 opened my eyes to the great outdoors, a charity challenge I entered with friends meant a number of training walks took place that year, the first being a walk up Helvellyn in the Lake District, along Striding Edge and back down Swiril Edge. I struggled walking for a few days after that walk, probably the first real exercise I'd done since leaving school, but once the pain depleted I couldn't get over the awesomeness of the Lake District and the sense of achievement, views, people I'd met, the whole package . 

I've gone on since then to walking and hiking all over the UK, almost every fell in the Lakes in fact, it was the start of something special, I also met my now Wife Sarah not long after that and got married in the Lakes in 2015 Eskdale, so all in all quite life changing. 

In order to keep fit outside of hiking I took up running more seriously following a few half baked jogs around the block, entering Manchester Marathon in 2012 I can honestly say it was the hardest thing I'd ever done. Anyone who runs regular will remember this as possibly the worst weather Manchester could throw at us in April, but freezing cold and absolutely shattered I finished in 4:07 minutes. What a feeling, Sarah was there to meet me at the finish, I remember hobbling back to the car and spending the rest of the day recovering. The training for Manchester took over my life in the build up, and whilst it was a buzz to complete the event I felt a bit empty now it was all over, what would I talk to people about? How would I motivate myself? Would I lose my fitness and put the pounds back on? So, only one thing to do, enter another Marathon of course, so Chester Marathon in 2012 was entered, and so it began, I was now hooked!

After running the Windermere Marathon in 2013 I was unusually quite emotional at the finish, the course is very different gravy to anything else I'd run, very hilly in places and just brutal in terms of the undulating roads, really caught me out and completely put me into the red. It was a Marathon I had to run, it was in the Lake District of course, due to this we made a weekend out of it and travelled up Saturday morning before the race, so we could spend sometime in the best place in the world (even if it is really hilly) and take in the atmosphere. Whilst at race headquarters Brathay hall the day before the race we noticed some runners finishing their 9th marathon in 9 days, in various states of pain and elation. Wow I thought, THAT is hardcore, no way on this earth you'll get me doing that, not on your life, what do you think I am mad, no chance, move on, forget about it, that's it, ok.....no. 

So in June 2017 I put in my application, I thought I won't get in anyway, and even Sarah my ever supportive wife said it's too much for anyone to do is that. But hey I thought, I'll be able to "dine out"on telling people I entered the 10 in 10 and didn't get it, well, what can you do, I tried.....Only problem being I got a call from Aly Knowles from Brathay Challenges, to the tune of "Hi Sean, it's Aly from Brathay, are you sitting down?, well you are in Brathay team 2018,....welcome aboard, life will never be the same again"
Holy crap........