Project Good For Age! Week 0/30

So Sunday marked exactly 2 calendar months since Ironman UK and got to be honest, I have lost the plot fitness wise since that magical day.

I have celebrated….. boy have I celebrated.

It’s been fun but I’ve had my fill of ‘celebrating’ now and i’m starting to miss feeling sharp and the general sense of wellbeing a healthy lifestyle brings.

I’ve put on a good stone in weight, eaten and drank whatever I wanted, (which was usually alcohol and crap food) and guess what?

I’m feeling like crap.

What was needed was a new challenge to regain my focus and keep me out of the pub and I’m fairly certain I have found it.

I have always wanted to run the London Marathon, and like everybody else take my chances each year and enter the ballot.

Last year, nearly 400,000 people entered this ballot and for the last three years the number of available ballot places was around 17,000.

Needless to say, the chances of getting a place via the ballot are ridiculously small.

But there is another way.

It is possible to get a ‘golden ticket’ and get yourself guaranteed entry and i’m not talking about paying £2,000 upwards for a charity place.

There is a little known thing called ‘good for age’ that surprisingly few people seem to talk about.

Basically, all you need to do is run a marathon within a certain time and the golden ticket will be yours.

I love the idea of grabbing the London Marathon entry system by the balls and bagging myself ‘guaranteed entry’.

In my case, this will involve running a marathon within a time of 3:15.

My current mara PB is 4:45.

I’ve set Manchester marathon as my ‘qualifying race’ which will be held on the 8th April 2018, exactly 30 weeks from now.

Impossible?

Anything is possible.

The first step is to get my 10k time down to 45 minutes.

My 10k PB is currently 52:20 but on Sunday my 10k took me 57 minutes so that is the ‘true’ starting point. www.strava.com/activities/1188827899#kudos

My target race for the 45 minute 10k is the Windmill 10k which will be on the 11th November, 8 weeks away.

Everyone is saying to me that it will take at least a year just to get my 10k time down to the target level never mind anything else and here I am wanting to do it in 8 weeks.

Let’s see what happens.

I’ll be posting an update each week so you can track my progress.

I’m not sure how this is going to go but if nothing else it will keep me out of the pub over winter!

Week 1 Stats:

10k Time : 57:57

Weight (on my scales) 14 stone

Weight (on bodytrax scales) 88 kg

Bodyfat (Per bodytrax scales) 24%

Wish me luck!

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