Thursday August 21st

"Summer running and the living is easy" (apologies to the Temptations)!

Actually this summer's running has been anything but easy, so too the living. More on that later.

 

So summer is nearly over, in the UK anyway. Did it ever start? :-)

It is is rainy season in Chiang Mai and the last couple of weeks have seen the number of dengue cases increase dramatically.

I found myself nearly crippled towards the end of last week. I had a very high fever for a couple of days, coupled with splitting headaches, aching bones, a mild UTI, and after the fever subsided chronic stomach cramps and diarrhea so much so I was vomiting in pain. Almost everyone I know in Chiang Mai was also going down with dengue fever so I was convinced I had it but I was determined to see it through without resorting to hospital or medicine. I took Echinacea and Pau D'arco and water fasted, gradually moving to juices. A week has passed and I now feel much better. I went for a dengue test today (negative), no idea if I actually had it or another viral/parasite infection.

 

So my pre marathon training mileage build up has taken another knock back. I managed to get in an 'easy' 5 mile run yesterday, it felt more like a tempo run. I guess things can only improve. Friday calls for a 6 miler and I'm hoping to plod 8 miles on Sunday. My first week of marathon training starts on Monday, I need to run a 13 miler!!! That sounds like an actual marathon right now!

 

Back to this summer's running. The original plan (post London marathon in April) was to focus on speed and do some 3k-5k time trials (my goal was 18:30 for 5k), however that annoying thing called work got in the way which played havoc with my training schedule. As the summer progressed so too did the workload. I'm sure with better time management, planning I could have made the time to stick to the plan, but I suspect the lack of a real goal (race) contributed there. My diet also took a bit of a knock as well; cooked food kept rearing its ugly head too, especially during times of stress (exactly when optimal raw foods should be consumed!). Thankfully that's out of my system now, the recent illness has only reinforced my raw resolve.

 

I've been re-reading Doug Graham's 80/10/10 book again. I'm not one to follow gurus (I hate that word), but his arguments are compelling and intuitively they feel right to me.

 

My plan for the next 16 weeks is to follow 80/10/10 again (this time with B12). My training plan is a mixture of Runner's World FIRST 3 runs + 2 cross training sessions a week and Josh Scully's excellent SMART approach to training and racing. I will post a detailed training plan shortly. My intention is to try and keep a daily food blog & training log throughout my 16 weeks preparation for the Hastings Marathon. It will involve plenty of hill training too. Take a look.

 

More on 80/10/10 tomorrow as well.

 

 

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Raw-runner > Blog > 2008 > August > Thursday August 21st 2008