What is this all about?

In 2005, I ran my 4^th marathon – in my newly-adopted home city of Copenhagen. The day started cool, but the rain stopped as the run started and by the end the skies were clear. I finished in a respectable 3 hours 13 minutes, my fastest marathon time to date. The run was comfortable – 1 hour 37 for the first half, 1 hour 36 for the second half – and I spent the afternoon recovering with a couple of beers and a light lunch with my parents in the sun down the road at Nyhavn.

I had never been better prepared for a marathon – over the preceeding 3 1/2 months, I had run 417km without a hitch. This was clearly the way forward, and that elusive sub-3 hour time I have always had my eye on was within reach. In 1995, my last year at school, a friend of mine and I had toyed with the idea of entering the London marathon and to aim for 3 hours. I however, aged 17, would have been a month too young, and erred on the side of caution when it came to deciding whether or not to lie about my age on the form. What if they checked up?

I finally got round to my first marathon in 1998 in Beijing. I was a student, out drinking cheap Yanjing beer in a bar in Sanlitun. My room-mate saw a flyer pinned to the notice board, advertising the marathon in 4 weeks’ time. I filled in my details and left the card in the box. My room-mate wasn’t drunk enough to do the same.

4 weeks later, I had been for 15 training runs and lined up on the start line in Tiananmen Square. 3 hours and 26 minutes later I finished – and after minimal training, had set a personal best that was to stand for 7 years.

It was not as though I became a regular marathon runner though. I ran in Paris in 2000, achieving a time of 3 hours 34 minutes despite have trained somewhat more than prior to Beijing. I then had a series of jobs in odd places around the world and, although I carried on running, didn’t compete in another marathon until Berlin in 2004. This took 3 hours 41 minutes. My times were going the wrong way!

9 months later however, I finally got a good marathon under my belt in Copenhagen. That same afternoon, sitting in the sun at Nyhavn, I decided to keep running at a lower rate over the summer, build up from early 2006, and get below 3 hours one year hence.

One year hence, I am sitting on my sofa with an injured leg and no chance of running tomorrow. Since February I have run 466km, though February and March only accounted for 100km of this. Maybe I wouldn’t have broken 3 hours tomorrow, but was certainly in with a chance of beating 3.13. My test run this afternoon revealed that I had not recovered from my injury incurred last weekend on my second-last scheduled practice run. I went home, booked myself a place on the Dublin Marathon at the end of October and did what any other man in Copenhagen in a similar situation would do. Called a few friends and arranged to go out for beers this evening.

This blog will be about my training for Dublin…and we will see if this time next year that 3 hour barrier is still standing.