And with a race, my training is done

The training has continued for the last few months as we now head into the last seven days before the Berlin Marathon.

That means:

You may have witnessed me numerous times running from my apartment in Brentford to Heathrow Airport and back.

The petrol stations along said route are used to me popping in to buy water or a sports drink. That is except it seems from the person working in one who asked me if I was also paying for petrol (keeping in mind this pit stop was after 20 miles i.e. I was very sweaty.)   

I am always hungry.

I have tried some new flavours of GU gels in order to spice up my training life. 

I have become used to getting home post long run with salt all over my body. 

I have not had any alcohol since 3rd July (the Bieber gig in Hyde Park). 

NYC:

Among all of that I managed a little trip to NYC a few weeks back for my friend's 40th birthday which was a great trip. To incorporate the holiday into my training plan it meant that the week I was away it would be a light week in terms of of mileage. I enjoyed some training runs along the Hudson river and on my long run even making it all the way from Downtown Manhattan to the underpass of Brooklyn Bridge which was an amazing run. It was about 10 miles which was a welcome relief from the usual Sunday run distance of late plus I pretty much had the city to myself as it was chucking down with rain. It was still warm and the views across the city were phenomenal. In addition, I got back to the hotel feeling like Rambo. 

I also did another running tour with City Running Tours around Central Park with my friends Sonia and Lilly. It was great to spend a Saturday morning taking in the park, feeling like a New Yorker and seeing famous sights from the movies. My favourite facts from our guide Victor were:

1) The Dakota building was called so because it was miles away from Downtown NYC (thus a little cut off like the Dakota states) which is where most people lived when the city was evolving.

2) One of the apartments in the tall skinny building that I like sold for $45m (despite being on the market for $125m.)

3) The Dutch bought Manhattan when they landed for around $30 from the Indians. 

4) Dogs are only allowed off leads before 9am in Central Park. 

5) The clock by the zoo chimes on the hour (and the model animals on the clock do a dance.) He wasn't lying, we made it just in time to watch the 9am dance.

I love NYC and will one day be back to run the marathon.

Imagine. I had never seen this in all my times to NYC. It was special as I thought of my Mum, Dad and Uncle who were all huge John Lennon fans

We're late for a very important date:

Casually impersonating New Yorkers

Me as Rambo post 10 miler in the rain. Trust me...I was a lot wetter than it looks!

Kew Gardens 10km

This is the 4th time my sister and I have done this race for Alzheimer's Society. 

This year, the race was to be entirely inside Kew Gardens which we were excited about. 

After a leisurely walk from Brentford to Kew we lined up and soon enough were off. It is such a lovely place to run and despite there not being too much support I can honestly say I enjoyed every step. There were some people impressively dressed as fictional characters like Red Riding Hood and some from Alice in Wonderland. As I passed Alice and the Mad Hatter I shouted they were late. They agreed and said they wold try and keep up. Keeping in character, that's what I like to see. 

It was a much better route than the previous three years which had us looping around the Old Deer Park for about 1km when you could see the finish line. 

I wasn't aiming for a PB but was running pretty hard as it was my last real training run ahead of Berlin. 

As I came into the final stretch I could see the clock approaching 39 minutes. I wanted to get under that and gave a final push. The result?

Time: 38m 50s

Overall place: 16 out of 2,314
Gender place: 11 out of 834
Category (male 35-39) place: 3 out of 160

I was pleased. Plus, the race bling from this event is one of my favourites. The guy that finished next to me turned out to also be running Berlin next week, I hope to see him at the start, finish, end (or all) when I am there.

Can you spot me at the start? See the guy in the front? The one with yellow socks? Look just above his right shoulder. See the guy with glasses? Yes, that's me.

We made it (and had a finish photos in the same outfits from last year!) I promise it is from a different day!

The bling is good (and building up!)

Ealing Half Marathon:

Next weekend is the 6th EHM. I have done the previous five and wanted to always be able to compete in order to have never missed one. 

However; it clashes with the Berlin Marathon. Yikes, what to do? 

At The Running Awards I met Sandra (the Race Director for EHM) and told her my problem. She said:

"What do you need me to do?"

I replied:

"Can I volunteer to help in some way before race day and still count as a person that has participated every year?"

"Of course", she replied.

Lovely lady and lovely news. So today I (and other volunteers) spent a few hours covering parts of the course leaving leaflets on cars to inform the public of road closures next weekend. I actually was assigned the part of the course which I have usually found quite hard on race day (due to the hills) but it also has one of my favourite bits as it passes where my sister and niece would be waiting outside their house to give me a high five after the hills. It was nice to reminisce and help out and I hope it still counts as being part of EHM every year since the start.

So that's it. Next stop, Berlin.