Marathon

Some good friends and my good self have decided to enter the Istanbul marathon. It is on Sunday the 18th October. I still have 2 more triathlons to complete, as part of the South West Series, so it is difficult to find time to fit in all the training, and even more difficult to cut out all the drinking. My swimming, in particular, has been neglected for much of the summer, with only really the fortnightly open water sessions at the club to mention. Cycling, too, has been more infrequent than I would like, but I have busted out some good interval sessions on the gym Wattbikes.

Running has been a bit more consistent, with lots of good runs found on the coast paths and around Dartmoor. This weekend I did 10K of speed work on the Saturday, then a 14 mile run on Sunday. The 10K was up to Central park, 4x 500m sprints and then jog back. I wish id put on my heart rate monitor as I was 100% ruined at the end. The long run was up on the Plym Valley Cycleway – a route I have only just discovered after K took me on a bike ride up there. It follows the old train line up onto Dartmoor, so is a very gradual uphill for 7 miles until you reach the village of Clearbrook, then a small loop and back the same way. You don’t really notice the uphill until you turn around, but my return time was 6 mins better than the out. Both ways it includes the very dark Shaugh tunnel where you end up running very fast and pretending that youre being chased by an alien, a la Alien 3. Well, I did.

The marathon itself is marketed as the only in the world where you run on 2 continents – you start in Asia, and run across the bridge into Europe. Sounds good, hopefully my legs will stand up to the training.