The RW Forum Six

As another past mentor (also not doing it this year) I can heartily recommend this

Vanessa - would I be right in thinking you are somewhere in the MK area?

Hi Bridget, Yes I live right by Willen Lake in MK so I'm very luckky to have fab running routes on my doorstep.

Do you parkrun then?

I do when I can although with teenagers I often end up spending the weekends as an unpaid taxi service so I just squeeze in a run around family stuff. Do you run in MK?

I now wish I was running a spring mara- but actually I've entered a double mara in april instead- I presume that excludes me?

Some great pitches already!

what double marathon is that tric

I have a friend who held the record for running to base camp for many years until it was recently broken by Lizzie Hawker.

On our way back from Base Camp to Lukla we were overtaken by the Everest Ultra runners - the winner ran in 5 hours 7 minutes what took us 2 1/2 days to walk .

They must train heavily at altitude.

Glasgow to Edinburgh Double- along the forth and clyde canal- it's a new distance for me- my longest so far has been 40 miles ( well, 41.5, 'cos I got lost). It clashes with the Lochaber marathon, which I usually do in spring, but hey, you have to try these things, don't you!

Goodness, any more pitches and i'll have to find some more mentors!!

Keep pitching folks   

Good luck to all that enter, I may throw my hat in the ring next year as I wouldn't be ready for a spring marathon, an autumn one might be plausible if I can get a strong enough base in place before June.

This has been going for a while to 'oppose' the RW comp. Initially it was started as a bit of a "Meh, regulars of the forum never get chosen (in the RW competition) because the cynical view is that we are already on RW and they want to hook new members in with glitter and tinsel and stuff, not illegal stuff, just stuff"

However, very quickly I think that it's morphed and been really successful, and I think it compliments the 'official comp'.

So yeah, it IS worth it guys and the forum is going through its worst slump for 'community' (not that is different to post count or new member count) that I've known.

I enjoy this and there is a lot of good sound running advice that can help people achieve their mara goal, whatever that might be.

Also here's my advice... get drunk on mulled wine (well it is the time), post your pitch and then wake up with the mother of all hangovers and think.... Fuck I've put it out there that I want to do a marathon, so I have to do it. (Disclaimer, no free painkillers, fried breakfasts or duvets supplied)

Man/woman up!

Thought I had better pitch seeing as I am running my first Marathon in April

Marathon Entered: Manchester Marathon in April (proof of entry can be provided)

Target: sub 2:55 maybe even sub 2:50 we shall see……

My power of 10 profile - http://www.thepowerof10.info/athletes/profile.aspx?athleteid=273014

As you can see from my PO10 profile I haven’t run a Marathon yet, but I have been involved in club running for a bit over two and a half years now.  So I am coming at this as a Marathon novice. I do have some ideas about how I want to approach training. In fact the geek in me has already written a schedule, to me this is the beauty of this particular process, it’s about working with a mentor to bounce ideas off, but the approach is still my own. What I hope to get from the process is to create some decent training chat, especially aimed at the first time Marathoner who is reasonably ambitious. I am sure there will be mistakes a plenty and it’s these mistakes (as well as a few triumphs I hope) that will make a thread tick and provide the talking points.   
I lurked on Martin and Gobi’s thread a couple of years ago found that particularly useful, I want to be part of a thread as successful as that was.
Those that know me from my regular thread haunts (waves at Minni) will know I am no-nonsense kind of guy; I will post up the good with the bad and don’t mind some decent banter as we go along.

A bit of background:
Sporty as a kid, hit my 20s got drunk, smoked and eventually got fat. As a new year’s resolution in 2010 I decided to lose some weight, so started dieting, running with folks at work over lunchtime and bike rides on a weekend. This worked pretty well and I shed a couple of stones fairly quickly. In April 2010 I was persuaded to run a local league race for my work running club. Well what do you know, I enjoyed it. So a month later I did another then another and thought to myself “if I’m going do this properly I need learn how to train properly” so I ended up posting on Runners World and joined my local running club. In August 2010 I ran my first proper race, the Ray Harrison Memorial 10k in Billingham, I ran it in 43:11 and I was hooked.  Check out my PO10 to see how I have come on since then.

Other stuff:
I am 34, I am married with a little boy who is 20 months old! Mrs YD isn’t a runner but is pretty supportive, though I do have to negotiate to get races in. As long as I do things like run on a morning before work, or at lunchtime to minimise impact on family she doesn’t complain too much.  So I think part of the challenge for me will be time management as I look to increase the training load. Nothing unusual or special in that, but particularly relevant to plenty on these boards I would have thought.

If it helps me get a spot I can post up fat pictures from pre 2010

Great pitch and some very impressive times there YD 

Hello YD!  Great pitch and yes I can confirm you are a no-nonsense kind of guy who readily shares the highs and lows (not too many of those though) of your training.  I didn't know all your history and that makes your times even more impressive.  All good stuff.  One thing though - I'm sure you've told a lie in there.  There's no way you are 34 !  When I was chatting to you a couple of weeks ago I was thinking, 'I'm old enough to be this boy's mother'!!