Marathon Training and Nutrition

As you can see from my profile, I'm a 49 year old married man with a passion for running marathons. In this blog I want to share my experience with you - my experience of training, of getting proper nutrition and of running the actual race. The last Marathon I ran was in Dublin in October 2005 and I set my goal to finish in under 4 hours. As it turned out I managed to complete it in 3 hr 59 min 17 secs. What a feeling of accomplishment. Incidentally, isn't it strange that having focused so hard on the 4hr I finished within 45 secs of my target time? Do you think our brain tells our legs to speed up (or slow down) by some amazing internal clock that we're not even aware of? Of course I'd trained hard for the marathon and I had really sorted out my nutrition but I still find it incredible that if I'd even stopped for a toilet break I'd have missed my target! I'll be talking a bit about this mental side of running later on but if you've got any thoughts I'd love to hear them.

If any of you ran Dublin last year you'll remember that it was an awful day weather wise. It bucketed with rain for the first couple of hours and then it cleared up and we finished in glorious sunshine. The great thing as far as I was concerned was that I never got any blisters or sore nipples or tweaked muscles. I finished in fine style and wept as I ran the final 200 yards. I've got a couple of theories as to why I managed so relatively well on my first marathon and again I'll cover them later.

I don't know if you can identify with this but having completed a marathon in the time I wanted has given me so much confidence to achieve much more in my life outside running. I reason that if I can slog my way around 26.2 miles then I can achieve my business goals; I can make my marriage work; in fact I can achieve whatever I set my mind to. Do you understand what I mean when I say that? In 2005 just before I ran the marathon I attended an Anthony Robbins seminar where I walked on fire. I saw it as a similar thing to running a marathon - it felt almost impossible; I had a degree of fear; I might hurt myself; I might fail and look stupid. However, I successfully walked on coals and that gave me a lot of confidence that with the correct training, nutrition and mental attitude I could also do a marathon. In one great year I became a fire-walking, marathon runner!! And so can you.