Beware of the door

The door is not your friend, he's not a good running partner, don't look his way for motivation.

"It's cold out, stay in", "Tough day at work? You deserve the rest" and the classic "There is alwasy tomorrow!!!", beware of the door and his whispers my friend.

The door would rather you stayed in and watched TV. Don't say I didn't try to warn you.

My first run mapped out

This is the route I have been following for the last couple of weeks. I created the route using Gmap Pedometer, such a great little application. You can see it in all its glory here.
At just under 5.5 km it's a little further than I thought which is nice.

I especially like the elevation graph that it produces as it means when you are planning routes you can see what kind of hills your going to face.
This feature would be great when it comes to entering an organised race like the London Marathon as you could plot the route and see how hilly the course is and perhaps tailor your training accordingly.

Planning a run

For the last few weeks I have been out running for the fun of it, is that right? What I mean is I've been going out for a run without really monitoring how far I go or for how long.
 
Now I have something of a routine going I wanted a good way to visualise how far I've run and start to measure my performance and hopefully the improvements I'm making.

I had a look online for a good resource that would allow me to plot my run on a map, like you can with car journeys on Google Maps, low and behold the beautiful people at Google also bring us Gmaps Pedometer.

Gmaps Pedometer allows you to quickly and easily plot your run, cycle or walk on map, it will measure the distance travelled (miles/km), elevation and even save the map for future reference, brilliant.

To create your first route, simply follow these steps:

1. Navigate to the Gmaps Pedometer site.
2. Enter the postcode of your start location and select your desired zoom level (I prefer level 15) and click the "GO" button. You will be centred on your start point.
3. Now on the left click the "Start Recording" button.
4. Now with your mouse place the crosshair on the map over your desired start point and double click with the left mouse button. This will place a marker on the map at the start of your run.
5. Continue to choose markers along the route (double left click on the map where you want each one to be), Google will do the rest. TOP TIP: go for major road junctions for your markers.
6. If you add a marker in the wrong place, don't worry, on the left there is an "Undo last point" button.
7. As you plot your route you will see little markers appear along the route, these indicate the distance, you can switch between miles or kilometres on the left.
8. If your running two a point and back again, use the "Complete there and back route" once you reach half way and Google will do the rest.
9. Once you have your route try out some of the other features like elevation and the calorie counter.
10. You can save the map to a URL so that you can send it to your friends, or use it again.

Gmaps Pedometer is a great little application and I will be using it to plan out all of my running routes.

The journey to London begins

The London Marathon has always been something I have wanted to take part in since I was a child watching it on TV. After all these years of thinking about it I feel it's time to get out there and do it.

This blog will follow the ups and downs as I train for the Virgin London Marathon in 2011.

I'm not new to running, but I have never run more than 10K in one go, so the step up to a marathon is going to be quite a challenge for me.

I think the turning point, when I decided I couldn't put it off any longer, was when I read about Eddie Izzard and his Sport Relief challenge to run a marathon a day for 7 weeks, that's 1110 miles and with only 5 weeks training. When people you would not associate with such herculean feets are getting up and making a difference it's quite an eye opener and the kick up the ass I needed.

Why next year, why 2011? A few people I have spoken to have asked why I'm not going for the race this year.

1. I missed the registration for the Virgin London Marathon 2010
2. Even if I could get a charity place I personally don't feel confident that I could be fit enough in time.

So here I am at the start of what I feel is going to be quite a journey. I've been running on and off for the last couple of weeks but today marks the start of my training proper.

Today is DAY 1.