13 in 13 Blog – Week 1

We are going to write a blog about the 13 marathons in 13 month challenge that me (Dan How) and Dan Lewi are doing for THE CATS FOUNDATION. We will fill everyone in on training (and any tips we may have!) and how we manage to cope with the whole challenge!

Dan How and Dan Lewi

Week 1 of the challenge

One week to go before the first marathon and we both know where we are in terms of being able to complete the challenge ahead. So far, so good in terms of training with neither of us having suffered too much in terms of injuries. In fact, so far we’ve managed to get away with the odd blister (which although painful, can be lived with) and strain here or there. Due to the size of the challenge ahead we’ve decided to limit running to two/three times a week, with one long run at the weekend. This has meant that we haven’t put in quite as much training as you would expect, but have also limited both injuries and fatigue.

After ten weeks of training we’re finally down to two days to go, and I for one am raring to go, kind of! As per usual I’ve done absolutely nothing for the last week to give all the muscles the best recovery possible. On top of that, I’ve been carbo loading as well, so in theory should be in ‘optimal’ shape come Sunday and the Brentwood Marathon. Of course that’s taking away from the fact that I’ve only managed to drop a stone so far (weighing in at 23st means I’ll probably be the heaviest runner in the field) and Brentwood is stated as being a marathon which ‘you won’t run to get a personal best.’ This is due to the 2 hills per lap and with 12 laps, that means we’ll be running 24 hills over the course of the five hours or so we’re aiming to take!

Unfortunately Dan and I haven’t managed to train together as much as we’d like, but frankly we’re here now and at the point of no return. The first marathon will act as training for the second, which comes three weeks after, and so on, meaning we actually probably won’t end up doing all that much ‘training’ (i.e. long runs) from here on. Let’s just hope we’ve done enough and manage to get through this one without any injuries. That’s got to be the aim for each marathon – completion and the ability to walk afterwards!

Wish us luck – below are the event details for the first marathon if you fancy coming down to support us or to make a donation for our challenge!

Event details

Date	October 2011 – November 2012
Event name	13 in 13
Location	All over the UK
Next marathon	30th October 2011 – Brentwood marathon
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