completed in an average time of 3:57.02
50 Marathons in 50 Days
17 July – 4 September
“Unreal! First off, I admire you greatly for taking on this formidable challenge“
Dean Karnazes
Dean Karnazes
Summer Time
School’s nearly out for Summer so I will have time to run at last. From being essentially an age-graded National level marathon runner at the end of the 50/50 marathon challenge [and still in sub 3:20 marathon shape as late as last October] a full 9 months of day to day workload has meant I have become less than a jogger in 2017, so far.
This weekend’s Spitfire Scramble event highlighted how much work I now need to do to get back my running legs! I mean 6 miles x3 in around 50 minutes each time over the 24 hours has left me with legs as tired as after a marathon.
Amazing how much your fitness can fall if you stop exercising regularly!
mile
A 5 mile run this morning that included a timed mile in the middle; got to 6.51 today[3.25 and 3.26]. I nearly gave up less than half into the first lap as it seemed so sluggish and slow. Even forgot to press the lap button as the 3.25 seemed so strange. Didn’t manage to speed up on the second lap but the pacing was consistent. Obviously I haven’t gained any fitness nor lost any weight in the last two days since the last 1 mile time trial so the sudden dropping of 10 seconds seems to be simply down to reactivating the fast twitch fibres?
The really annoying thing is that my watch is only logging the measured course at 0.99 mile [though it did in the past log it as the mile it is?] I am certainly running exactly the same circuit each time.
Progress so far then 20 seconds off in 3 weeks:
| date | location | 800m | 800m | total |
| 20/04/17 | gooseley | 3.36 | 3.36 | 7.11 |
| 21/04/17 | gooseley | 3.36 | 3.30 | 7.06 |
| 09/05/17 | gooseley | 3.33 | 3.28 | 7.02 |
| 11/05/17 | gooseley | 3.25 | 3.26 | 6.51 |
131 days 294 miles
track
Nice to run on the soon to open Community track in Stratford tonight with the guys.
mile again
A 6 mile run this morning that included a timed mile in the middle; got to 7.02 today by managing to go faster on the second 800 [3.33 and 3.28]. At least one mile effort a week will hopefully start to bring that down to a reasonable time; as long as I loose some bloody weight. Will try again on Thursday morning for the sub 7 minute. So much for a fast mile year.
This evening another 6 mile jog with the guys. The most running in a day for 6 months [2 runs in a day]!
129 days 289 miles
mile again
A 6 mile run this morning that included a timed mile in the middle; got to 7.06 today by managing to go faster on the second 800 [3.36 and 3.30]. At least one mile effort a week will hopefully start to bring that down to a reasonable time.
111 days 251 miles
mile
A 5 mile run this morning that included a timed mile in the middle; only able to get to 7.11 oh boy. At least the pacing was okay 800s in 3.36 and 3.35
110 days 245 miles
marathons
I have a friend who will complete a year of marathon running on Sunday [though he won’t after all get a London Marathon place] and wondered again about this multi-day thang.
Ben Smith [nice chap, organised and ran one of his marathons] didn’t complete 401 marathons in 401 days [he took 10 days off due to injury then added extra mileage to the remaining days] Eddie Izzard didn’t complete 27 marathons in 27 days [he missed a day for medical reasons then did a double day at the end] Rob Young’s 370 marathons in a year has been questioned after he seemingly got caught cheating on another long venture [and he took 3 weeks off at one point].
Personally I felt more than able to continue after a mere 50 days but I’m sure many times more than that would have started to feel like a chore [Ben Smith has talked about the difficulty of readjusting to real life after his run finished].
How many marathons in a year. How many consecutive days of marathons. The equivalent of marathon distances over a certain period. Were the days’ runs continuous or broken into smaller parts. All these subtleties seem to be glossed over by write ups and reports. A shame because the confusions add to the publics’ questioning of real hard work and athletic endeavour.
