From 0 to a Marathon in 22 weeks.

This is such a great thread - way to go Steph!

I'm also a beginner and running my first half marathon in October. Reading your updates has been so inspirational - thank you!!

Best of luck and I will be following you all the way.  

Hiya

I have really enjoyed reading this thread! You are an inspiration! Good luck Not that you will need it, you really are doing super! You should be very proud of yourself

Reading threads like this make me even more motivated!

How are you finding your garmin watch? x

Thanks for all the comments.

Sarah Rowe: Thanks for the tip when walking the dog, that makes sense.  In the last week i've really started to notice and feel the effects on my upper body from running, which is an unexpected bonus.

Mrs Portou 2 Be: regarding my watch I totally love it!  I have the Garmin 610 and i've customised the home screen so it has 4 stats.  Overall Time, Overall Distance, Current Lap Speed (I have the laps set at 1 km), and my current heart rate.

It's great for example looking at my 7k from last night and I could see that the effort was very consistent.  I was around 136bpm for my first k and slowly progressed to around 152bpm by the end of the run.  Because I have the 4 stats that interest me on one screen i don't have to mess around changing it at all. 

The one thing that i'm not doing a lot is using the virtual runner, but I fancy doing thist this week, or next. I want to set myself a small 2 mile challenge on a rest day just to try one quick run, because I think it would do my confidence good if I can force out a short quick run, so that I know I can do it if I need to.  My one and only weakness with my watch at times is when I get tired I start looking at it a bit to often counting down the distance   But when I started i was doing this every 200m, now I don't even glance at it for the first 2k except when it buzzes at the end of each K just to see my speed.

Oh the one thing I do recommend with running is not watch scary TV Programs about horrible things just before running.  I watched a series of Cracker on DVD just before going running that was about rape, and had all sorts of dark thoughts in my head for the first half of the run. Completely silly I know

Toots: your welcome, if I have any advice to anyone just starting (from my whole 7 weeks eperience) it's just this... keep going, even if it's a bad run, when you are slow, your legs ache, and you feel that it's not achieving anything, just keep plodding along, and it's all part of the learning experience. I think we all need the odd stinky run, so we can appreciate what happens when it gets hard, and we learn how to cope and just keep going.

Cheers everyone.

glad i could offer something back to you, i get alot from your postings.

nordik walking (with the poles) is another good one which uses same muscles and others in a different way.

morning steph . . . .

laughter is good exercise??? lol!

i dont think you need to worry . . . .  until you start fancying the grass at the side of your running route . . .

well done steph!

good luck for weigh-in tomorrow.

i managed to do a session from my couch to 5k programme today! i'm so pleased i tried it. it went ok, but foot still not 100% - but never mind - i RAN!

yippee!

yeah its great - i'll try again on friday.

walking has been a bit painful today, but i'm SURE i'm getting better, lol!

evening steph

well done on your times, were they what you expected?

i ran this morning, back home before 7.30. i'm glad i went but my foot has been terribly painful all day. pain is exhausting and i feel v down

i am going to ask doc for injection on tues morning, tho i have great anxiety about it.

i'll see how i feel on sunday if i run again or not.

Ohhh, hope your foot is ok!!  Fingers crossed they can help you with it.

Yes, I was content with those times, quite windy and hot after work, pleased with how consistent I am. 

I'm scared for the first time to be honest, read stuff about probably expecting to do second half of marathon around 1.3 x the speed of the first half so know that  I need to get my arse in gear and speed up a bit. 

I've had a slight muscle pull all week and was actually worried about it but it's fine when I run it's just stiff if i sit in a chair at work for an hour or two. When i stand up it feels like it just wants to collapse but feels weight bearing after a few seconds, just being a wimp as it's fine when I run.

I work in IT and the more I know, the more i'm aware of what I don't know.  I'm starting to feel like that but out of my depth a bit with regards to running.

It's like I really should look at things that can improve me, like my form when running but i don't have the slightest idea really where to start.  I wonder if I need to get oh to video me running, at least then i'll have a clue if I waddle and roll about anywhere near as much as I feel I do.

Anyway onwards and upwards.

A tired elephant

Oh... Playing with Garmin, this month i've run and walked 130km

72k of which was running/jogging WOW. It's small fry but hey it's way more then I could have imagined.

have you had your gait analysed? 'they' take a short video of you running (on a treadmill) for their purposes on analysis.

i did before buying my shoes, but i dont think id want to watch a vid of me running -  i dont think i am a graceful figure making it look effortless! lol

i've been overweight most of my adult life, and i chose to get gait analysed at start so that i wouldnt do myself any injury (funny ha-ha) running in poor shoes being so heavy. my main reasoning being that as i HAVE to be able to walk everywhere i didnt want to injure myself and then not be able to walk as well!

i'm thinking that my gait will remain the same the lighter i get, but the running will become easier, because they said i have a neutral gait anyway.

you've done so well! (my waist is 122cm!)