QUARTER OF THE WAY

Well against the odds I have just raced race number 10 so only 30 left to go.

Feeling really good now, with races under my belt and all of them in reasonable times (1:45 - 1:47), not quite at PB and will be making a concerted effort after my holidays to raise the bar and get back to full fitness.

thanks for all the support so far and don;t forget to pledge some money to this worth while cause.

Back Running, HOORAY

Well, I am back running again, today. I did a respectable 2 miles in 17:10 minutes so not too bad for the first time in 10 weeks.
Hoping this is the end of my troubles and I can get back to the serious business of running and getting on with challenge 40.
I am going to be running the Hyde Park 5K so if anyone is going to be there say hello.

Off the crutches

Hi All, I am now off the crutches and hopefully on the road to getting back to running again. I am hoping all has gone well and in 2 weeks I can start running again (if only a short distance).
I am going to be cross-training etc in the next couple of weeks and so will hopefully start getting fit before I hit the roads. If all goes well I am hoping to start racing again in the next couple of months.

It's a Stress Fracture

Well it is bad news all the way. After the pain in my lower left leg (inside) still had not completely gone after a week of doing nothing (including walking as I was in a car) I went to see a specialst.

The X-Ray showed nothing so not put off he sent me for an MRI on both my leg and my lower back. Well what a surprise the MRI showed I had a severe-critical stress facture in my lower leg. He immediatley put my leg in an aircast and gave me crutches. NO weight bearing for 6 weeks. The only savng grace is that I can swim so I am trying to keep my fitness.

This is definitely no the end of Challenge 40 its just a temporary hitch. I realise not the best of starts but I am determined to carry on and achieve this goal,

I will keep you posted on progress and my boredom levels ;-)

thanks

Going to get some rest

Well I did my first yoga class yesterday and it went really well. I enjoyed the relaxation part of the exercise and also the stretching was fantastic. My back is feeling better already, I am hoping that it will help with my leg.

I am also off on holiday next week so apart from some light swimming I am going to get a complete rest. If this does not work I give up.

It gets worst

Well I should have realised it was coming. As I really did not rest sufficiently (my own fault) my shin splints have caused my calf muscle in my left leg to give me pain, specifically when I go up on my toes.

After visiting my local sports injury guy, John Harris, my worst fears have been voiced. No running for at least 1-2 weeks and lots of icing.

In the meantime I have to attempt to keep my fitness level, so lots of swimming, cycling and cross-training. I am hoping it will not be too bad, but will be looking forward to running again.

This I hope is not going to affect Challenge 40, but its not a great start ;-)

Esher Church School 10K

After only 2 weeks recover from the London Marathon I was at the start of another race. This time just round the corner at the local schools 10K race with only 300 entrants.

I was actually quite nervous, my left calf had felt a little tender all week and after a run on Saturday my thighs were feeling sore. So it was with these feelings of dread that I walked to the race. I really wanted to prove to myself that I could do better than the times I had so far achieved over 10K, my PB in a race at this time was 48:17 and I did think that I could do better.

So when the Headmaster of the School rang the bell for the start of the race, I head off with the front pack, though quite quickly was left behind. The first kilometer was a respectable 4 minutes, but I knew I need to slow down or I would never finish. So I settled into a consistent 4:25 pace (except one kilometer which has a slight gradient which dropped to 4:50), and after passing the half way mark in 22:14 I started to think I can actually do this. It felt very comfortable and as I came up to the 9K mark with 40 minutes on the watch I really started to get excited.

As I went over the finish line in 44:35 I gave a great cheer even though I was only the 5th female, but I had done way more than get in the medals I had taken nearly 4 minutes off me PB and I was ecstatic.

I must admit this result has really encouraged me with Challenge 40, anything is now possible. Did anyone else have a good run in Esher?

Talking to Childline

Once I had decided on a name and what I wanted to achieve I thought I better talk to Childline. At first I sent them an email, explaining what I had in mind and if they would be interested.

A couple of days passed and went and I started to think it was all a bad idea. However, a few days after sending my email I received one back from Debra at Childline. She was very enthusiastic and was not really sure how to handle it, she suggested I gave her a call.

Not wanting to look tooo keen I left it till later that day and called her. She was in awe over the whole thing, and not really sure how should handle it, was it a national event, a local event, was I willing to have some press interest, how much involvement did I want from Childline.

To be honest I was not really sure, my basic aim was to raise awareness for Childline and the NSPCC and also to raise as much money as possible. With this in mind I was willing to have as much help from Childline as possible.

At the moment Debra has gone of to speak to her boss and see how Childline can help me with my challenge and I am awaiting her call back next week, so don't forget to find out how I got on.

The birth of Challenge 40

So the searching began for marathons and half marathons for me to run. I decided that I would alternate between running 1 marathon 1 month and 2 half marathons the following month and so on until I had completed my challenge. It was not actually that difficult to do this, the only problem was fitting them in with my already busy social life for this year.

Once I had convinced myself this was actually all possible, another idea popped into my head. Well it seemed a waste to do all this running for no real reason, apart to prove to myself that at my age anything is possible. So why not in the process of doing all this running, try not to raise some money as well. I had run the London Marathon for Childline and it seemed a logical step to approach them with my idea. However before doing so I need a name......

After long deliberation, I decided on Challenge 40, seems a logical choice, I am challenging myself to 40 races before I am 40 to raise £40,000, and so Challenge 40 was born.

I quite like it as a name and the concept is simple, so would anyone else do this, or am I just mad.....

An Idea

After completing the London Marathon and recovering sufficiently after 3 days (well my legs stopped hurting), an idea started to fomulate in my head. I am 37, going to be 38 in August, I wonder if I could run 40 marathons by the time I am 40.

Bearing in mind I only had 27 months to go and I had only completed 3 marathons, it seemed impossible. On searching the internet (www.runnersworld.co.uk) I discovered that my challenge was going to be difficult not because of me but because there just are not enough races for me to run, certainly not in the UK.

So, not to be detered I decided to change the criteria slightly and that I would attempt to run 40 long distance races (minimum distance half-marathon) before I am 40. This sounds better, I had already run 9 marathons/half-marathons so only 31 to go. It was at this point I decided I had better ask my running coach, Richard (www.momentumsports.co.uk), after all there is no point attempting the challenge if he did not think I was up to it. Well he actually liked the idea, with a little tweaking to make it harder for me (I'll tell you about that later) and so I opened my spreadsheet I started working out how I could schedule 31 races over the next 27 months....