January
The journey starts at the BHFR Christmas Party in December and the annual draw for the club’s London Marathon place. I was over the moon when Mary O’Kart drew my name! I’m so grateful to have the club’s place this year and am determined to make the club proud.
And then the realisation hit – I better get training! And so I did, getting stuck in just before the new year and early January.
I’d been running middle distances fairly often, so I felt in a good starting place. I’ve run two marathons so far, but I have not yet managed to bring either under my goal of four hours. My first marathon was in Gran Canaria in November 2023 (4:12:54) – I was pleased with my time given temperatures in the high 20s and direct sun throughout. Then Richmond Marathon in September 2024, which was a disappointing result in comparison (4:35:36), but extremely tough having tackled illness and a broken toe during training.
With the extra motivation of the club’s Marathon place, I’m determined to make London 2025 my first sub-four-hour marathon. And now I’ve put that in writing… I better focus on achieving it!
Which brings me to training and trainers…
For me, following a structured plan with mixed sessions seems to work well – consistency and adapting the plan when the unexpected comes up has been really important. I tried Coopah briefly – the app London Marathon are promoting – but it didn’t work for me. I’ve returned to the Runna app and its marathon plan. I like that Runna tends to push you fairly hard in interval runs (tip: you might need to tweak your current race times to get paces just right), and it syncs with my personal calendar (unlike Coopah) which means I can work out how to fit training sessions alongside work and life.
As I write this, I’m in week four of my 17 week plan, and I’m really enjoying it. I’m up to about 40kms a week, which builds on the distances I was already running. I’m definitely already feeling my stamina building with the benefit of intervals and progressive runs, which is making me more confident I can bring my marathon time down in a few months’ time. To keep things interesting, I’m building in other ‘B’ races where I can – this week I did the BrighTEN run (10 miles), in February I’ve got the Sussex Downs Trail Run, then Brighton Half in early March. A big decision coming up will be whether to take up my place in the Brighton Marathon in early April, three weeks before the London Marathon 😬- will have to see if it works as a training run without risking injury.
Something else that’s been helping are some new trainers. I’ve been through a series of not-quite-right trainers recently so, in late December, I returned to Asics Gel Nimbus – a popular and very cushioned shoe. For me, the comfort over longer distances is paying off in speed, so I’ll definitely be keeping these as my marathon shoes.
And that’s it for now – I’ll keep you updated as the training progresses 😊
James