The Big Day: Can't quite believe it but its all over now - all the training is over, the marathon has been done, and most importantly 'I've raised over £1,500 for Help the Hospices- A huge thank you for that to everyone that has sponsored me.

The day itself had its ups & downs. The start was amazing - running past a church in Greenwhich that was ringing out the BBC London marathon theme on its church bells, then running past the locals having a St. Georges Day party on a balcony (in full fancy dress) who showered the runners with confetti!! Around about 6 miles, a previous problem with my calf re-appeared painfully, and between 9 & 19 miles that was all I could really think about - I'm disappointed to have missed out on quite a lot of the atmosphere during this time. Fortunately, after 19 miles I really cheered up and ran the last 7 miles with a smile on my face, even singing along to one of the bands along the way at one point!! The last 1.5 miles got tough again, but the end was so close it didn't really matter so I just tried to enjoy it. I finished in a time of 4.10, but with the confidence that next time I will do sub-4 without the bad calf. Just haven't decided when next time will be yet!!

Hello!

Thank you for visiting my Marathon page. Please dig deep and sponsor me online.

This will be my first marathon attempt and seeing the pounds rolling in will help get me out of bed to train on those dark winter mornings!

Help the Hospices provides support to hospices in the UK - including Trinity hospice in Blackpool, where my dad was cared for. Since the majority of hospices in the UK are independent, they rely on donations for funding. Hospices do an amazing job supporting both patients and their families and having personally benefited from that, I want to raise as much money for them as possible.

So please sponsor me now - and help me beat my £1,500 target!

Many thanks for your support.

Love from Adele xxx 

PS - I will be updating this site with my training progress, so come back if you want to hear how my training is going

TRAINING LOG

Week 1: Full of enthisiasm this week, got in all of my scheduled training runs and did my first AdiRun with the team from Addidas on Oxford St.

Week 2: Got a new leg-strength training program put together by a trainer at the gym - its a killer! Not sure about fitting that in AND all the runs, but we'll see.

Week 3: Very very busy this week and failed miserably to train properly. Only managed to fit in the wednesday AdiRun, and a 10-miler on sunday....hopefully seeing this here in print will make sure I don't slack off again.

Week 4: A good week. Managed the gym program and all my runs - lets see how long I keep that up for! Culminating in a 12-miler on Sunday, which was surprisingly painless... its the 14 more miles still to go that worry me!

Week 5: It was all going so well....until I injured my knee during my long run. Don't worry though (I keep telling myself!), should be OK with a couple of days rest.

Week 6: With slow steady warm-ups, the knee seems to be OK after a few days rest. Did a 14-mile in the wind & rain on Blackpool/Fleetwood prom on sunday and felt great - maybe that means I'm not working hard enough??!! A big thanks to Paul for keeping me company on the bike despite the rain.

Week 7: The short mid-week runs are increasing in distance now, with 8 miles on Weds. Also increased the length of my long run this week - got lost on the way to Richmond Park and ended up doing 18 miles instead of the planned 16!

Week 8: Was running against the wind all week this week! Made 18  miles feel a lot further than it did last week! For the first time the thought 'why am I doing this' crept into my head!

Week 9: Not a bad week, though fitting the short speed sessions into 30 mins in my lunch hour feels like I am neglecting them a bit - probably explains why I'm not getting any faster! My long run on saturday saw me in bed by 8.30pm - not good for the social life!

Week 10: Did a long run of 20 miles this week, which is quite scary! I really enjoyed it, and it wasn't too difficult - I just wish I wasn't so slow! I may have an excuse though...I went for a sports massage and was told I had high arches - apparently you need flat feet to run fast - its probably a miracle I can run at all!!

Week 11: Ran the silverstone half-marathon on Sunday, in 1:48:43, which is a lot faster than I thought I'd do it - luckily I got chatting to some people at the start line and we agreed to run together. If it wasn't for that pushing me on I'm sure I'd have happily plodded along at my usual 9 minute mile pace instead of the 8-8.5 minute mile pace I actually did it in. It was hard work though and I certainly won't be running the marathon at that pace!

Week 12: The weather is finally warming up, and I went from running in trousers & 3 layers on wednesday to shorts & t-shirt on saturday! Not sure if the temperature had anything to do with the difficulty level of my long run this week - I did 22 miles, and found it much more difficult than the 20 miles I'd done a couple of weeks earlier! The distances will start to reduce now, so hopefully I'll be able to recover enough energy to do the extra 4 miles on race day!

Week 13: The 8-mile mid-week run round hyde park becoming unbearable - don't know if I'm getting tired now or if i just need a change of scenery! Only two more of those to go though so will persevere. Did a 16 mile race in Kingston on Sunday morning, and stuck to my planned 8.5 minute/mile pace, finishing in 2hrs16.  The plan now is to run the marathon at about a 9 minute/mile to make sure I enjoy the day & minimise pain!

Week 14-15: Enjoying myself again now that I'm tapering - even the 8 mile wednesday run felt like fun!! Not too much running to be done -long runs at the weekend were only 12miles in week 14 & 6 miles (!!) in week 15. I'm officially excited now!

(Donating through this site is simple, fast and totally secure. It is also the most efficient way to sponsor me: Help the Hospices will receive your money faster and, if you are a UK taxpayer, an extra 28% in tax will be added to your gift at no cost to you).