Those nice people at the MK Marathon....

Those nice people at the 2012 Milton Keynes marathon now have on their website a training schedule which looks good.  Now Christmas and the New Year excesses is fading, it's now time to start training for the marathon which is on 29th April.  So today it was off to the gym treadmill to pick up the Intermediate training schedule.

By the time I got there I had completely forgotten what I should be doing so decided to take a guess.  I set the treadmill for one hour at a steady pace of 6.5mph (this is about a 9.15/minute mile).  I should say this is incredibly boring in the gym but I decided to stick it out.  The treadmill was a bit wobbly and I was right underneath a speaker which meant I couldn't really listen to my ipod shuffle.  Never mind, I got into the rhythm and the minutes drifted by on auto pilot.  When I had almost reached the hour and I was still going okay, I added an extra 15 minutes and increased the speed to 7.5mph which took my heart rate to around 180-185bpm along with the flashing display of "HIGH HEART RATE".  So, a good run with just over 800 calories burnt and I feel great.

I'm not completely sure why I decided to go for the MK Marathon but a friend did mention it as being a good one to start off with..  Here goes: it's new, all reasonably flat, not too big (maximum 6500 runners) and it is one loop, rather than 3 laps.  Should be a great atmosphere and the website ticks all the right boxes for organising things well - of course, we'll just have to see on the day but for now I think it looks very good in terms of their planning and preparations. It is also at a great time of year - late April.  I'm really looking forward to it and the training beforehand because I know I can do it.  On a personal note, it's a cool thing to do at 50 I reckon.

While I was looking around their website, I noticed some other blogs and also a link to the Runners' Medical Resource website which is definitely worth a look.