I didn't get a place for the London Triathlon this year so... I finally relented and had a go at running my first marathon.

On my birthday.

Good reasons why I shouldn't run a marathon:

1) It's a flippin' long way
2) It was a flippin' long way
3) It was already hurting a bit
4) It did go on to hurt a lot more
5) It did mean swapping evenings out drinking and chatting for training runs
6) I like evenings out drinking and chatting
7) It was less than 48 hours after Cathie's big birthday party in Scotland
8) It was on my birthday and I certainly didn't fancy a Guinness afterwards
9) It really was... a flippin' long way

Good reasons why I did run a marathon:

1) Mum, Thiemo's Dad, Annette's Mum, Fred, Mike, Linzi's sister, Klaus's friend, Trisha's sister, Emma TH's Dad and Ali.  And survivors Frazer, Jane, Diana, Ivor, Steve and Mrs Day and her sister.

Those of you who knew Ali Rainback, I will take part in one of the 'team rainback' events in 2009 to raise money for the Hospice of St Francis.  HOSF did an amazing job taking care of Ali and his friends and family, but I would still like to see the hospices less busy and so ran my marathon for Cancer Research UK: to ensure that their amazing work for preventing and curing cancer can continue. 

Donating through Justgiving is quick, easy and totally secure. It’s also the most efficient way to sponsor me: Cancer Research gets your money faster and, if you’re a taxpayer, Justgiving makes sure 25% in Gift Aid, plus a 3% supplement, are added to your donation.

The race report and photos of the day are now online at the address below.  To see what an excellent job you have all both this yars and in previous years, you can see your current fund raising totals here:

http://uk.geocities.com/irene_kiener/Flowers_or_donations.htm

Thank you to you all for wishing me luck and excelling yourselves with the amount of money you have raised.  You've all done brilliantly, exceeding even the excellant work you have done in the past.  And I really really couldn't have done it without you.  Thank you.

Michelle x

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Training updates:

17 August - Ran a nice slow 21.5km round the Hallwil lake while Dad, Gabi and Paula took a boat across the lake and visited the castle.  I felt fairly OK, but much better after lunch by the lake.

19 August - Ran a nice easy 8.5km just to ease down from the weekend.  In the evening was told by my osteopath that I have "enthusiastic anterior pelvic muscular insertions".  I was briefly flattered until I was told that their enthusiasm is caused by the fact that my "glutes are lazy and basically asleep".  Hmmm I'd always thought my glutes were quite passable until that point.  Looks like I'll be waking up my glutes then.

24 August - Engadiner-Sommerlauf which I used as practice for mass starts, overtaking, hydration and... to run the furthest I have run in my life so far.  27km.  It's a stunning run, from Sils along the valley, past lakes, through woods, through St, Moritz finishing in Bever.  The highest point is at 1861m and the lowest is 1701m.  It snowed lightly the night before to about 2000m so a cold start but the sun came out and took the chill off 800 runners and I learned "cinque minuti alla partenza".  The first 5k felt easy, up to 10k felt pretty good - then that battle at 12k until 16k when I started to feel better and more energy kicking in at 22k.  At 25k I felt surprisingly good and despite not setting a time objective thought I would see if I could sneak in under the 2.5 hours mark.  Final time... 2:31:16.  That'll do.  Apparently I burned 1363 calories, so I'm off for some cake... ummm I mean highly nutritious, well balanced, marathon runner type food.

29 August - Hmmm long days in the office have meant a bad week for training runs (i.e. none!).  Off to join Cathie and Alison to go sailing now.  I'm going to need to run an awful lot of laps of our 12m long boat!!!

13 September - Was surprisingly disciplined on holiday and managed four good runs, getting up early to avoid the worst of the heat.  In total I ran 47km.  My favourite was running 10k from Loutraki on Skopelos island, over the hill to the North side where I saw 'that' church from the Mama Mia film as my reward before running the 10k back over the hill to our boat, and the return leg was very very hot hard work indeed.  And when I wasn't running I was swimming about with ropes, hitting my head on the main hatch, slipping on the deck and crashing my thigh into the guide wires, you know, usual holiday kind of stuff.  Though before Cathie and Alison tell on me, I had better confess to doing a fair old bit of sleeping as well.  Right, Greifensee half marathon as training next weekend...

20 September - Greifensee Half Marathon.  Dreadful.  Dreadful, dreadful, dreadful.  Was targeting a time of 1:45:00. Expected to at least get 1:48:00.  Actually got... 1:58:05, and was lucky (or stupid?) to get that.  My left knee started to hurt at 6k, getting worse at 10k with pain then radiating down my calf and up my thigh and into my back.  Every first aid station became a hugely tempting stop.  Every km took longer and longer.  I've never run that slowly and never been in that much pain running.  Am currently deeply concerned about being ready for or getting through Dublin.  Am seeing my osteopath on Thursday.  Keep everything crossed.

30 September - Well that explains it (tiredness and terrible Greifensee performance), though it doesn't solve it.  I'm ill.  Saw my osteopath last Thursday who said, "deny it all you want, but your lymph nodes are inflamed and your glands are swollen".  Too clever by half that girl... I woke up on Friday morning with a sore throat, a streaming nose and a temperature.  My only training since has involved ingesting as much fresh fruit and fluids as possible.  Am feeling a bit better today, may try a small run tomorrow.  Still need to fit in a 20 'miler' before I start to taper.  Sniffle, drip, drip....

4 October - On the 2nd of October I managed my first run since being ill.  7km at an easy pace and felt tired but OK.  Then today ran 10km which was the first time for months that I felt OK running and felt like I had some energy.  I even enjoyed it.  Sort of.  Then rounded off training by watching 'Run fatboy run' on DVD, to get some tips and motivation obviously.  Favourite dialogue... Dennis: 'He runs marathons!'  Gordon: 'Why?'.

6 October - Really went for it yesterday and ramped up to running 30k (18.5 miles), which I expect will be my last long run before Dublin.  It was longer than I should have done really after being ill, but I feel psychologically better for having completed that distance (the furthest I have ever run!).  At 15km my glutes finally introduced themselves to me.  Today, if I walk very slowly and gently, you can hardly tell that almost everything hurts (with the possible exception of my eyelashes).  Lummy my abs hurt when I sneeze!

8 October - Genius.  Absolute genius.  Brought all my running kit to work to run at lunch time... except for my running shoes.  The marathon is eating my brain.

13 October - Staring to reduce my running load as I taper towards Dublin has given me time to produce some random statistics for you.  Did you know, that since I started training for Dublin at the beginning of June, I've run 335 km, which is about the same as running from London to Manchester, or from Zurich to Milan?!  And I've burned 17,000 calories, set 2 personal bests, and broken 1 treadmill.  Amazing huh?  No? - OK, just me finding that interesting then.

16 October - Hmmm, knees and ankles aching when I run even short distances.  Am tapering drastically and resting professionally to gather my energy for Dublin.

20 October - Oooo, this time next week... it's my birthday!

26 October - Oh wow, look at how much money you've raised.  You guys are great!

27 October - 3:48:10