Adam in Runderland

The Manchester Marathon is now only three weeks away. I've been training for it since Christmas, gradually increasing my mileage week by week while increasing my core strength through regular exercises. The last few weeks have been tough. The number of miles required has been in the high teens and finding the time to run that sort of distance isn't easy with work and family commitments. Up to that point I had been able to use my lunch hour or club sessions with Parklands Jog & Run or Northampton Road Runners to get an eight to ten miler in. I then ran a couple of half marathons that took me up to fourteen miles. I found a few hours to put in a sixteen miler and incorporated my weekly Parkrun into my long run to stretch that to nineteen. However I was keen to complete twenty miles before race day and this weekend had been on the calendar for a while. I woke to a wet and windy Sunday morning. Not ideal but I thought if I could run well in these conditions it couldn...

With only six weeks to go until the Manchester Marathon I need to start getting some long runs in. My aim is to get up to 20 miles by Easter which will give me two weeks to taper. I've never done any serious marathon training before and I hope this will help me reach my target of sub 3:30. As I have been concentrating on half marathons up to this point I have already done 15 miles including a warm up so an extra mile a week should do the trick. The issue is finding the time. My goal is to complete the training at marathon pace - 8 minute miles. The other challenge this brings with it is finding a route. This week I decided to head out along the Grand Union canal from the centre of Northampton. I've run part of it before as a night run with Parklands Jog and Run but this would take me further. I parked the car in St James retail park and initially followed the River Nene which runs west, parallel to the canal, through to Upton. A sharp left turn took me over a s...

The pressure was off last weekend as I entered the Milton Keynes Half Marathon on the back of a new PB. My recent run in the Brighton Half Marathon had resulted in taking 6 minutes off my previous best and going under 90 minutes for the first time. This race would have been my chance at a second attempt had that not come off. I ran in Milton Keynes last year and found it tough going. In 2014 there had been a mini heatwave but this year the weather was cool and windy. As you can see from the profile below it has a nasty surprise at the end too. I was in the first of two waves for sub two hour runners. The start time was slightly later than normal as a 5k and 10k event were held beforehand.We set off at 10:45 on a figure of eight loop that started by the Xscape centre before taking in various villages and lakes before finishing back at the snow dome. The support was good with large groups of people at the start and finish and pockets of supporters in the villages ringing cow...