Its all about your goals!

Hello!
Welcome back to reading my blog. Its a little late as I ran a little race yesterday and only got home today.
I believe that in your life you need to set yourself goals as otherwise you may waste opportunitys which could enhance your own life and maybe even that of others.
So my goal for this year is to raise money and awareness for The Amber Philpott Trust by running my 35mile ultramarathon on the 14th of July 2012 as part of the Yeah Baby charity concert event in Abingdon.
Obviously to achieve this I have set myself "sub" goals and this week started by me tailoring my training to my 2nd goal of the year, which was to run the Baildon Boundry Way half marathon in less then 110minutes. Have I achieved this or was it a learning experience? WEll keep reading:-)

Monday

I did a quick run of one hour and covered a distance of 8.15 miles I have not achieved this in my training before so I was very proud to say the least. I was very motivated on Monday as my lovely and very supportive wife decided to go out for a run and ran 25% further than planned and regardless of the distance it was a great start and she worked hard! That much dedication by my wife made me work that bit harder to achieve my goal of 8miles in 1 hour.

Tuesday

I ran a shortened interval session after work and it was hard work as I still do not like interval sessions but at least I do not hate them anymore....

Wednesday
My last chance to run before the HM race and I managed to get a good 12 mile run in the lovely sunshine at a decent pace. I ran up the ridgeway and enjoyed the glorious view of Lark Hill and views down from The Ridgeway. I am one lucky man to live and run here.

View of Lark Hill

View on my downhill section from The Ridgeway

Thursday and Friday
No training run just run off my feet at work....

Saturday
Driving to Baildon to see our amazing friends and running partners

Sunday
RACE DAY well today was the day and when we were led to the start I feared the worst as we were led downhill and as my friend Graham aptly said  "the one who walks down will have to run up again".

View downhill  to the start

His words were very true but still that did not stop me to fulfilling my sub goal for the race of running it as fast as I can with as much fun and as little care as possible and boy that I did. The views were amazing and the marshalls, runners and spectactors were extremly friendly and supportive. I have never experienced anything like this which helped me to run up the crazy hills of the last few miles. Sadly my runkeeper died but Graham was kind enough to tag me in his. Please ignore the times and just look at the elevation Runkeeperlink. So the run was amazing and I could bore you with all the mental ups I had during the race and how challenging the hills were but I won't. I learnt a few things a) my interval, speed training and strength walks do work b) running without care really makes you faster and c) I love overtaking club runners....
Anyway I had a great time thanks to the support of my family and my friends and managed to run the hilly half marathon in 1 hour 40 minutes and 52 seconds which meant I have smashed my goal of running sub 110 minutes and am close to my season goal of running a half marathon sub 100 minutes.

Left to right: Mark,  me, Graham

Me wearing my T-Shirt with pride all day the next day:-)

Fundraising news:
The Taxman has finally done all the things that need to be done so I should be able to get my fundraising page any day now I am so excited!
Stats Zone:
Runs:4
Distance covered this week: 36.54 miles
Distance covered this month: 13.1 miles


Thank you for reading my blog please feel free to comment on it and share it with your followers and friends.




If you would like to raise money for  The Amber Phillpott Trust. and other charities supported by   The Yeah Baby Concert and to see me finish my 35 mile long Ultramarathon, then please come to the YeahBaby event in Abingdon Oxfordshire on the 14.07.2012 for a  free day of music, stalls, face painting etc... and soon I will be able to create my sponsorship website so watch this space