Lucky No. 7

So it’s been an eventful summer, England won the ashes, as Blur reformed Oasis decided to split up, and of course the mighty Luton Town started their travels in the unchartered waters of the Blue Square Premiership – the only true and good premiership going.

With all that it’s no wonder I forgot about running, and abandoned my blog for a while – especially after the thought of 5 marathons down.

Still there are two to go now and I mustn’t grow complacent. Nottingham’s up next and it’s this weekend – and once again I’m missing another Luton game for my other passion – buggar. Oh well, it’s the alma mater (no idea of those are the right words, but it sounds good) city of my wife and her sister so no doubt we’ll have a good time inbetween.

The start of the Robin Hood marathon - guns at the ready

I’ve actually run the Nottingham half-marathon before so I kind of know what to expect for half the course which is good, although the last time I ran it was absolutely freezing cold, so fingers crossed for better weather this time. Nottingham is a lovely city to run through – what with two famous old football clubs to pass and then some lovely park land to trek through I’m thoroughly looking forward to it already.

I must admit though that over the summer it’s been harder to get motivated for training – hopefully I’ve packed enough miles in to make sure that I’m fit enough – but even if not and I have to walk a little part of the way I’m treating this one as more of a training run in the build up to New Forest which is obviously the final bad boy of this mission and the one that I’ll definitely want to get around. It’s particularly imortant that I manage to stay injury free for these last couple of weeks – especially after managing to steer clear of injuries over the seven months. This is my most paranoid fear at the minute and I’m currently trying to nurse a sore throat into getting better to make sure it doesn’t knock me out of either of these next two races. It seems weird that just one little trip, spill or illness could knock all my plans out of kilter at this final hurdle! Indeed my brother and my friend are testament to this who were both going to run the New Forest marathon, but who have already picked up nobbling knee injuries, which has forced my brother out of running it!

These people make me sick

The best thing about running in the summer is the potential for sun tanning. I’ve done a number of training runs now in the baking heat around London. I’ve often come back from a three hour run wearing my running singlet and just a few hours later this leaves me with the loveliest looking pair of bright red shoulders with just a strip of white running through the middle. My wife agrees that it’s a very hot look! Of course I could go round like the other fine fettled young men through Hyde park who abandon all such tops (looking like something straight off the cover of Runner’s World or Men’s Health and fitness – sickening), but unfortunately despite all this running I’ve impressively managed to maintain a fair amount of my beer paunch too – a feat I’m tremendously proud of, so I really don’t want to put tourists off their food on their relaxing holiday!

Other than that recently it’s been a fairly quiet summer – no long holidays or anything like that for me unfortunately. However news has recently picked up with two quite exciting developments from my challenge! Firstly the extremely generous Rotaty Club of Hitchin have agreed to sponsor me by giving me the proceeds of their Christmas Quiz sale – apparently this raises quite a sum most years so fingers crossed!

The other bit of good news is that I’ve been nominated for a Beacons of Hope award (I posted about last year’s awards a long, long time ago). So that’s fab news and I get to go to City Hall for a posh do – so I can even get to see my brother hard at work there no doubt!

Anyway update on Nottingham to come next week and then I’ll let you know how I get on with the awards shin-dig.

Mark