Let's talk about food

I've been putting off writing this entry for a while as I don't really feel qualified enough to talk about it, but now we're six days away from the Marathon, it's probably a good time to discuss my diet. Most of the information I've been following was the result of internet research and making sure many different sources agree on the same thing. It's difficult to know what to believe, especially on the internet!

Mo' money, mo' problems - Ghandi

Firstly, and most important, what to eat after a run. Don't worry about eating before - not when you're just getting started - but instead focus on trying to repair your body's damaged muscles and recover lost energy. The best thing to eat for any kind of recovery is PROTEIN. You'll see big, muscular people in the gym endlessly drinking protein shakes, and that's for a good reason - protein is essential to helping muscles repair and recover, helping them grow stronger for next time. There are dozens of different ways to get protein into your diet including, but not limited to:

-eggs
-chicken breast
-Greek yoghurt
-milk
-broccoli
-beef (the leaner, the better)
-tuna
-quinoa
-brussels sprouts
-fish
-turkey breast

Even snacking foods like almonds, pumpkin seeds, and peanuts are high in protein. I personally love beef jerky, which is high in protein and delicious to boot. After a run, I like to enjoy a protein shake and a protein bar to get the right nutrients back into my system and begin the recovery process for the next run. I should warn you that protein has a very particular taste that takes a while to tolerate. The first time you eat a protein bar, it will feel like chewing a bit of old tyre.

UNLEASH THE PROTEIN

Full of sugar, but also protein.

There are dozens of different protein supplements that can increase the amount you take into your body. In addition to the shakes, I also have this special powder for making pancakes.

I only trust food presented by an anthopromorphic moose who could crush my skull with a single flex.

Once you start going for longer and longer distances, you can begin planning a light snack before a run. This is a totally different requirement - the aim is to give your muscles as much stored fuel as possible, in the form of carbohydrates. This will prevent those ungoldy aches and pains as every last bit of energy is burned from storage. If you're running up to 10K (roughly six miles), you won't need to partake in carb loading, as you're not likely to use up all the stored energy in your system. Any further than that, however, and you'll definitely need to consider advanced preparation. There are a lot of great foods that will help pile on those desperately-needed carbs:

-pasta
-rice
-oats
-bread
-potatoes

When planning a long run, I like to eat a plain bagel or two around an hour before setting off. This a great last-minute snack that provides additional fuel.

Can't go wrong with a bagel.

This is all for before and after a run, but what about during? What happens when you start to flag? I carry several energy gels with me during a lengthy run and try to have one roughly every hour or so (on my cooldown/ recovery lap). These little beauties are full of slow-release glucose and additional carbs that provide a sorely-needed extra burst of energy on the day, without leaving you feeling full and bloated.

These things are lifesavers!

After a run, I recommend getting some energy back as quickly as possible. Lying down on the sofa will only make it worse when you need to move again later. I like to drink a special mixture of amino acids that disolve in water. This big tub was purchased on Amazon and has lasted for several months now:

One scoop in a glass of water and you'll have enough energy to get through the day!

So that's what to eat. How about what not to eat? This advice is a lot smaller and simpler. Avoid greasy foods before a run - not only is it heavy and will leave you feeling lethargic, but it will give you stomach troubles pretty quickly. Take it from me - you don't want to have to ditch the run because you need the toilet. It's not pretty and it's not fun!

Other than that, avoid hot or spicy foods. I love meals with a bit of kick, but I know that they'll only cause me agony as everything jolts and sloshes in my gut.

And that's it! I've been avoiding this subject for a while because I'm not a nutritionist or a trainer. I strongly advise researching this stuff yourself instead of taking anything I say for granted, but if it helps someone out there, then great!

The final countdown

It's less than sixteen days until the 2019 London Marathon begins, so how am I feeling about it? Honestly, I just want to get out there and start running. I've got a serious case of itchy feet. After the last seven months of constant worry and stress and hard, hard, hard training, I know for certain that I can reach twenty miles in a decent time and with enough energy remaining for the final push. All I want to do is get on with it now.

Seven months have flown by, but these final weeks are dragging their heels...

At the time of writing, I have begun to taper my runs and steadily ease back on the distances. I never managed to reach 20 miles a second time, much to my disappointment, but this past Monday I ran a fairly respectable fifteen in around three hours. Still experimenting with my pace, but five miles running and one mile walking seems to be doing the trick.

Good (or at least dry) weather also helps.

I'm finding a strange new problem when running for these distances now. I eat a dry bagel about an hour before heading out (as I read was the best thing to do), but damn does my stomach rumble after about two and a half hours. It's fine on these practice runs - there's a bakery on my road currently offering pasties for £1.50 - but what will I do on the day? Will being hungry make me run faster? I have no idea! Hope I run past a bakery on the day, though. Nothing nicer than eating a pasty while walking in the sun.


Keeping this blog going has really helped me manage my thoughts. It's been really useful to catalogue and chronicle my progress, to keep it all in one place. Even though I haven't kept it as updated as I'd like - mostly due to my own desire to keep every post interesting and different, instead of endlessly adding 'did a run, went good' - it's been good fun to chart my rise through the ranks. Maybe when it's all said and done, I'll go back through and see how I grew and changed from a casual jogger to a full-blown marathon runner. That feels so weird to type - in sixteen days, I'll proudly be able to call myself a marathon runner. What an achievement that will be.

I cannot wait to stand on the line with thousands of other enthusiasts and newbies and athletes and get the greatest marathon in the world underway.

End of chapter six/ The beginning of the end

Twenty six days remaining. Just over three weeks until the big day. Six months ago, I replied to an email at work, expressing my interest in running the London Marathon. It was a pipe dream, nothing more. A wild fantasy. They'll never pick me, I thought. And why would they? At the time, I was barely able to complete three 10k jogs around the local park every week. Look at me now!

GOAL SMASHED!

Twenty freaking miles, baby. And not a bad time, either. In fact, with this run, I tried to learn how to pace myself. It really did the trick. I ran five miles, then walked the sixth. Alternated like that for a while. Got pretty hungry at the end and grabbed a pasty from the bakery at the bottom of the road. Ate it and walked a few laps. Ran home at the final stretch. Still finished in good time. I'm happy with this. Really, really thrilled with it. I never really believed I could achieve this kind of distance. But here I am!

Maybe it's a bit late in the day to learn how to pace myself, but I've picked up everything else by myself as I went along, so it kind of makes sense. Taught myself how to run. How to breathe. How to conserve water. How to maintain a steady pace. How to keep my stamina up. How to hold my back while running. How to stretch after. What stretches to do. I didn't know any of this before I started. Now I'm running twenty miles on a Thursday afternoon and walking around the flat afterward without screaming in agony. Pacing works!

So it's now April and my intention is to start winding down and tapering my runs. I would like to hit the big 2-0 again, just to prove beyond a doubt that I absolutely can do this, before that happens. Then I will slowly reign myself in. Fifteen miles. Twelve. Six. Right up to the big day. Marathon day.

My journey is almost at an end. A part of me will be sad when this is over - I've looked forward to this for so long. But another part of me just wants to get on with it. I know I can do. All I want to do is get out there and prove it!

A new world of hurt

Thirty three days to go.

You want to hear something that sounds utterly crazy? I'm pretty comfortable with running thirteen miles now. Not only can I do it without feeling overwhelmed or exhausted after, but I don't experience many lingering pains or discomforts. Sure, there are the usual aches and muscular clenches, but nothing nearly as severe as it was back in December, when I first reached this milestone.

What I've learned now is that my body can tolerate the half-marathon distance fairly well - quite comfortably, even. For me, the real test of stamina and endurance comes into play once I hit the fifteen-mile mark. That's when things change.

Martin Lawrence appears at my side to announce this moment.

Once I hit this figure, my body reaches peak endurance. Everything beyond this becomes a test of sheer willpower. I have to tell myself to keep going, keep going, keep going. Two weeks ago, I reached the amazing new milestone of seventeen miles - the last lap of which saw me practically screaming 'Come on!' at myself over and over to keep going and not give up or falter.

It's not just a mental challenge at that distance, but a physical one, too. At fifteen miles, the pressure that has been steadily building inside my knees reaches critical mass. My calf muscles begin to seize, burn, and throb all at the same time. My lungs begin to ache from the strain of controlling my breathing for almost three hours. My vision starts to blur - colours shift and swim, and I start to see faces in passing trees. It hurts like hell to keep going - but stopping makes it so much worse.

What I wouldn't give for this kind of torment...

If I slow to a walk, everything starts to burn from within. It feels like fire spreading across my legs, knees, ankles, calves, thighs - everything all at once. The only way to make this agony end is to pick up the pace again - but that's nigh-impossible after already running for three-plus hours. It gets worse as the distance increases, until I'm ambling along in this pained forwards-crab-walk, desperately trying to keep moving, wishing the pain was at an end already.

Last week I reached nineteen miles on my run and that damn near finished me off. The pain I described above only gets worse with each mile, steadily doubling until I'm unable to do anything except run and wheeze and scream at the night sky. I felt drunk after that. In fact, I was told that I looked drunk. I came back to work and collapsed on the floor, talking in gasping, broken fragments that might have sounded like English, but probably wasn't.

New personal best. Will I be able to beat it before the big day?

At least I know what to expect on the day. And given that I'm capable of reaching nineteen miles in just over three and a half hours, I can probably afford to slow down a little and postpone this agony as much as possible.

I'm not running for myself anymore

Forty five days to go.

I came to a strange realisation during my run this past Monday: I'm not running for myself anymore. Once upon a time, I would lace up my trainers whenever I felt like it and enjoy a quick thirty minute run-walk-jog around the park at the bottom of my road. Even after finishing the 'Couch to 5K' course, I was mostly running for myself (people told me that I looked slimmer and that was a really nice thing to hear).

Even those small compliments felt like this.

Those days are long gone. Now I lace up my trainers with other things on my mind. I've one goal, one vision, one thought occupying my mind during every minute of every run for the past six months. The London Marathon has clouded all my thoughts. I'm still nervous, still excited, still barely able to believe that I will be tackling the most famous marathon in the world.

I'm not running for myself anymore. Not for my own health or my own pleasure or my own benefit. Now I'm running for a cause. I'm running because there are people relying on me. I'm running for all the people Crisis are going to support with the donations they receive. I'm running because people have sponsored me and believe that I can do this. But most of all, I'm running because I have to. I have to do this. Six months ago, it seemed like a crazy dream. Now I'm just over six weeks away from the biggest, most daunting challenge of my entire life.

Minutes?! Jeez, calm down, Mr. Endurance.

Can I do it? Yes. I believe in myself. In all the training and preparation and reading I've done in anticipation of the big day. All the vegetables and protein shakes and eggs I've consumed, knowing what the effect would be on my body. I'm feeling good about it. There's just the 'small' matter of trying to finally hit the big 2-0 mark before the end of the month. I can do it. I know I can do it.

I know because I have to do it. I'm not running for myself anymore. Every step I take, I can feel the support and energy and willpower of every single person cheering me on. All the donations, all the jokes, all the questions and encouragement and support - I can feel every single one of them flooding my body with every step. It keeps me going. Keeps me focused. Helps me push through the pain and press on, no matter what.

Thanks, guy.

Even when the torrential rains begin at the ten mile mark, I don't quit because I can't. I am committed to this. There are people counting on me and I will not let them down. Crisis. The homeless people they support. Everyone putting in money to show their support. I will not let you down.

Nice.

Thirteen soggy miles

This past Tuesday, I did something I've never done before: went for a run in the pouring rain. It was a strange experience. I've run in cold weather and boiling sunshine and light showers, but never in constant, monotonous rain like that. At first, it was pretty amusing. People gawped at me in cars and chuckled from under their coat hoods as I raced past, ignoring the cold water pelting my face. But it soon began to wear me down.

Two and a half hours in the cold downpour. Not my finest moment.

After the first hour, it stopped feeling so funny. I started to feel cold. I zipped up my light raincoat and kept going. My hood kept blowing off or obstructing my vision, so I ignored it and carried on without. Halfway through the second hour, I had to ease back on the pace more often and that's when I started to feel genuinely miserable for the first time ever. I've never felt that way while running before. Even if I force myself to get out there and go, my spirits have always picked up as the miles begin to tick by. The feeling of unrelenting misery; of running beneath endless dull, grey clouds; of racing through constant, unceasing rain was thoroughly unpleasant. The worst part about this is that the cold and damp seeped into my clothes and left my joints feeling more achy and pained than usual the day after. It seems that wet knees require even more love and attention than usual.

I wanted to try and hit fifteen miles again, or - even better - to reach a new personal best, but the rain and the cold worked together to dampen my mood and totally throw me off my game. At thirteen miles, I called it a day. Hey, at least I know that if it rains on 28th April, I can still run half the marathon.

Like these poor people. I don't know what's more disheartening - running in it, or trying to cheer people on from the side.

In other news, my fundraising has finally crossed the halfway mark! This is utterly incredible! Thank you to everyone who has chipped in so far. We've still got a long way to go, but there's plenty of time.

Look at that! Amazing.

As for me, I'm planning another run today, but those heavy clouds are slowly rolling back into place above me. I'm trying to steel myself for another inevitably damp and disheartening session...

The big push begins

Fifty three days to go. I still want to try and hit the big 2-0 mark before the end of the month - that's my goal. I'm planning to run after work (weather be damned!) and hoping to reach a minimum of thirteen miles tonight, more if I can. It'll be tough if the weather is as poor as the forecast suggests, but I have to do it. What if it rains on the big day? Can't call off the entire marathon because the British summer arrived early.

Pictured: summer in the capital.

My fundraising is going really well, too! I'm so thrilled to have raised just under half of my goal - almost one thousand pounds! Absolutely incredible. A massive, massive, massive THANK YOU to all the wonderfully generous people who have chipped in so far. You're going to make a huge difference in the lives of people who really need our support.

Look at that! We're smashing it!

I've never done anything like this before. Not the run, not the fundraising - none of it. I sometimes throw a bit of change into a charity pot if I can, but that's about it. The was a challenge I set myself - to do something right, to give something back, to try and help people who really, truly need it.

And, of course, I'd be lying if I said that the opportunity to run the biggest and most popular long-distance event in the world had nothing to do with it. I want to push myself to the limit and beyond. Some people ask me why I chose to put myself up for this. The answer is pretty simple. I want to know if I can. I want to see what I can do. The chance to run this event is simply too tempting to ignore.

A lot has changed in my life over the past few months. I wonder where I'll be a short few weeks from now..?