Thanks for visiting my page :

On April 25th 2010, I will be competing in the Virgin London Marathon (competing maybe overstating the case a little as I guess Haile Gebrselassie will be resting easy in his bed) .

This will be the culmination of over a years training covering over 400 miles and over 75 miles of that will be races (I am "competing" in one 5k, 2 10k's, 1 10 miler, 2 half marathons and the marathon over the course of the next 10 months).

The charity I have chosen to run for is Asthma UK, this is a cause very close to my heart as I and almost every male in my family suffers from the disease. Fortunately for me mine is well controlled with drugs but I have had a few serious attacks in the past and can't express how terryfying it is to not be able to breathe for no apparent reason due to asthma.

Asthma tends to be overlooked as a serious disease so the statistic that one person dies every six hours in the UK alone may shock you, it certainly did me! That statistic alone tells you that there is still a great deal of work that needs to be done on research and treatement of asthma.

Please help me and Asthma uk by sponsoring me for this year of runs. I will not be bothering anyone for sposorship everytime I enter an event  just for the year as a whole and the marathon which is why I am setting up this page 10 months before the actual event (in case anyone thought I was being over-keen) also the longer this page is up the more donations I will get, hopefully!

I will run the races, brave the elements, run the miles, eat the boring carbs, spend stupid amounts of money on supplements, trainers, running magazines etc, all I ask you to do is give some money to make it worthwhile for me - thank you very very much

Jus

Race reports 

First Race : Felstead 10k 12/07/09, I went to bed extremely well prepared and woke up a gibbering wreck as I had never ran a competitive race before and was worried about making an idiot of myself, fortunately PT to the stars Dave Harrington was on hand and ran the race with me which was invaluable, the first 4k went well and we were doing a sub hour time but unfortunately at the 4k mark I got a cramp in my calf and had to stop briefly for a stretch, this bothered me for the rest of the race and made the hills even harder (who knew Felstead was twinned with Kilimanjiro??) however Dave was in my ear the whole time motivating me and I ended up finishing in 1hr 4mins and 32 secs, not too bad for my first race but plenty of room for improvement. The winner came in at 32mins and the last one past the post was 1hr 21mins. My goal was to finish, to not be last and to be injury free by the next day and I have achieved all 3. The next main race is the Run to the Beat half marathon on 27th Septemeber but I am going to get a few more 10k's in before then and will update here. Thanks to everyone that has donated so far it really helps motivate me for my training and I really apprecaite it.

Second Race : Run to the Beat Half marathon 27/09/09.

Surprisingly for this race I didn't wake up in such a mess as I did for the 10k in July, I had planned my route to the race, planned how I was going to run my race and I felt ok. However when I arrived at the race at the O2 the nerves really hit home and it led to me heading off for the first 3 miles a bit too quickly, I soon reigned myself in though and despite a few times when I had to stop for 200 yards or so I ran (very slowly) the vast majority of the way, at 12 miles I ached all over and for the first time in the race had a doubt about finishing the race but I plodded on and even managed a sprint finish (showing off the crowds is obviously an energy booster :)!!!! I finished in 2hrs 31mins and despite being much slower than I had aimed for (2hr 15mins) I am not that upset with the time. It does illustrate how much training I have to do between now and 24th April (The London Marathon) though but I am determined to do it and to do it at a higher MPH than my past 2 races. My legs ache quite badly as I write this (28/09/09) and I will rest for a few days but I have the RUN10K at Hylands Park coming up this Sunday so can't rest too much!!!!

Third Race - Run10k for Cancer awareness - 04/10/09 

As this race was on "home turf" and I had ran double the distance a week before I felt much more calm on the evening before and the morning of the race, we arrived nice and early and I had chance to warm up properly and stretch and this paid dividends in the race as I felt more comfortble than I have felt in a race situation yet. At 5k I had done a time of 31mins and was confident of breaking my target of sub 1hr and running a reverse split however at 7k my legs started to tire and although I kept running throughout the steep hills at the end of the course and my fatigue meant that a sprint finish was unfortunatley not going to happen and I finished in 1hr 2min 11secs, this was disappointing but is still an improvement on the Felstead 10k which was a road race and is a personal best time. I have the Nike Human Race on 24/10 and will train very hard to try to break the hour mark for that one. Thank you very much to everyone that has sponsored me so far it does really help to motivate me!!!

Fourth Race 24/10/09 The Nike+ Human Race

Fifth Race - Billericay Striders 10k  01/11/09

Woke up to strong winds and torrential rain and was very close to pulling out following my dismal performance last weeK but gave myself a good talking to and got on with it. Was a very tough course full of hills and the weather was brutal but I still managed 1hr 2min 26 secs, which is 15 secs slower than the RUN10K in September but I am quite happy with it considering the conditions and felt quite comfortable for the whole course, despite the weather. Thanks very much for the continuing support, I am now past my £1,500 minimum for my marathon Charity place which is great but I  don’t let that stop anyone donating :)!!

Update - 14/01/10

Happy New Year Everyone, due to the weather and a lack of races available, I have been confined to the treadmill for most of December and January, it's not too bad but not as nice as getting out in the fresh air. Have made some good progress though and am now up to 310 miles of training. Fortunatley I have managed to stay injury free and my training has come on slowly but surely! My average pace is now down to 11.10 per mile from 12.5 per mile when I started and I am regularly doing 8-10 mile runs which is quite satisfying. Have got 2 half marathons coming up and am desperately trying to find a 15-20miler to do in between the last half marathon and the marathon so if anyone knows any that might suit let me know. Till then I am pounding the treadmill and the pavements of Great Notley. Thank you so much to everyone who has donated so far I really, really appreciate it.

Sixth Race - 21/03/10 - Brentwood half marathon.

Well I set off in lovely weather which remained for the duration of the race, was a blessing and a curse really as I have been training in sub zero temperatures most of the time lately and to have 10 degrees on the course was quite challenging, not as challenging as the hills were though!!!

The first 5 miles of the race are downhill and although this seemed great at the time it was very hard to regulate my pace and I struggled badly through miles 7-10 which was all uphill, still it's a lesson learned and all good miles under my belt so I am still keeping quite positive!!!

My time was 2.26 which was a pb and 6 mins off my Run to the beat time, howver this is suggesting a 5.30-5.40 marathon time which is much slower than I wanted so I have to work really hard in the remaining 5 weeks, am currently plotting a 20mile route for my last lon gtraining run and it seems a very long way!!!

Thanks again to everyone who has contributed, it is a very good cause and I am so appreciative of every penny!!

Seventh Race 27/03/10 - Braintree 5

A shorter race this one and it was bascially on my doorstep so no real pre-race nerves and i could actually enjoy the race. Was a tough hilly course and the field was made up of "racing snakes" and club runners so I was keen to do my best and get a good time. I ended up doing 46.21 and for the first time did better than my target time. Was a thoroughly enjoyable run and I nice distraction. Next Saturday I have my last long slow training run of 20 miles - wish me luck!!!

Jus