Walking a Marathon (in a day)

I am walking in the Astro Holkham Hall 10 Mile Walk next Sunday 7 October and running in the O2 Run-To-The Beat Half Marathon on Sunday 28, part of my 5 Half Marathon Challenge for brain tumour research. I am now trying to get fit again after dropping a paving stone on my foot and a bout of idleness before and during a family holiday. I've been doing this for five years now - I enjoy most of the events but I really find the training hard. It's so difficult to find a new training route - only 2 ways to turn going out of my gate! I have the inspiration of my brave niece Gemma and it is her example that keeps me going.

Good luck Frankel. Have you a Just Giving page or similar? I should be happy to sponsor you.

Me too, Frankel.
Sue - if ever you fancy taking a walk with a bit more up-and-downery, you would be most welcome!

Me too, Frankel.
Good luck for next week, and for all your half marathons this season.
It's all very impressive, Gemma must be a great inspiration to you. Good thoughts to you both.

Is it possible for you to take a bus, train or tube from near your gate? This could extend your training ground choices. My favourite training ground, Richmond Park, is a 10 min walk, 15 min tube ride, then a further 20 minute walk to get to the Park from my flat--but it was worth it.

Please be careful with paving slabs...Back in July you wrote some very helpful advice to me when i decided to train for a trekathon. Hopefully re-reading your advice could give you a boost as well.

Thanks Greatnan. I'll let you know if I'm coming Alps-wards, and bring my walking pole.

Thank you very much Shysal, Greatnan and GrandmaMiney. I do have a justgiving website but I wonder if I might bottle up your goodwill for a new fund-raising effort in 2013. I am entered for the Reading Half Marathon 2013 and when I decide what else to do, I will give it a push with new thread and stop stealing this one . I've just failed again [5 years out of 5] to win a ballot place in the London Marathon which I need if I am to run for Astro, a smaller brain tumour charity run by volunteers that doesn't have it's own London Marathon places. I ran the race in 2011 for Brain Tumour UK but, if I can, I would like to run for Astro www.astrofund.org.uk/ the charity my niece Gemma supported. She was a very brave young lady - struck down by an inoperable brain tumour in 2006 when only 26 and, tragically, died in November 2010. I'm told brain tumours are the largest cancer killer of people under 40 years old. You can see why I'm still running even if, as some of my road-side supporters smile and say, 'you're old enough to know better'!

Hi Frankel,
I really admire your continuing dedication to such a sensitive cause. Please feel free to use this forum to keep us updated with your amazing efforts and your fundraising. When I read of your events I feel quite humbled.

[Although a Professor of Sports Science did send me a message to say that walking a marathon "in what the uninitiated would call a slow time, say 10-12 hours" requires the stamina and even more mental endurance than that of elite athletes running the same marathon distance in a fast time!]

I don't know what happened with the London Marathon ballot this year, my daughter was also unlucky, I guess the number of applicants has been boosted by the London Olympics and our great sporting year.
I hope you manage to get a place somehow. I will definitely support your 2013 effort.
Sue

Thank you, GrandmaMiney - or should I say, Miss Marple . If you can support my 2013 effort as well, I shall be doubly blessed! The London Marathon is always massively oversubscribed - I think they close applications for the ballot when it's about 5 X the limit which takes a few days at most. People can always get to run for a charity, if they agree to raise the charity's required funding target. Mine was £2,500 for Brain Tumour UK but there are other charities with lower requirements. There are plenty of good causes but I can only get really inspired (and committed to all the training) for the one.

PS: Well said, your Professor of Sports Science - sounds like a sound fellow! ... and thank you again for your support.

Frankel - just remember that some of us would really like to sponsor you and let us know when you are ready for contributions.

Greatnan - I will remember, how could I forget such a kind offer ? I just ran 6 miles in the pouring rain this morning, trying to get fit again. Well, it wasn't raining when I started - only when I was 3 miles away from home!

Sue. Well done you.
Respect.

Just a warning to anyone who has followed my progress so far!

Pride comes before a fall --and after the joy of achievement just a few weeks ago, boy did I hit a low this week.

The 'challenges' of ageing caught up with me now that I'm not rushing to Richmond Park at every available moment. Not quite 'sans eyes, sans teeth, sans everything' [pace Mr Shakespeare], but just having to face the fact that I should really be wearing my 'progressives' (aka varifocal glasses) all the time now. It's such a palaver getting my reading glasses out of my bag to read the paper when I'm on the train loaded with basket containing a cottage pie, broccoli and carrots for supper, en route to look after my grandsons overnight. Then glasses off and on again for checking the oven, looking at homework, and reading bedtime stories.

Plus the challenges of having to spend more time and money at the dentist these days--and deciding if I should now go completely grey, grow or cut my hair etc etc etc. Such a pain--until i remember to be grateful for the health I have that enabled me to complete the slow-walk-marathon, without knackering my knees and hips--or heart and lungs.

Any thoughts on 'growing to love the challenges of ageing'? Or should I start a new forum for this?
All thoughts welcome...

ps I had my hair cut, decided to wear my progressives all afternoon yesterday--and life began to feel good again as I shamefully acknowledged all the blessings

Have a good weekend

Sue, you are young in heart, which is what matters most. You will soon be back to training for your next challenge.

I've been wearing my 'progressives' (never heard that term before!) for about 15 years - anything's better than the half-moons I once had - they were SO ageing! And, having tried to go blonde at 60, I gave it up because it was such a hassle having the roots done ever 6 weeks or so and in fact it didn't make me look any younger. Nevertheless the 'challenges of ageing' have really caught up with me in the last 10 years and I hope that most of them are behind me now.

I agree with Greatnan that you need another challenge to prepare for, not necessarily as difficult as the marathon.
I think you should definitely start a new thread about loving the challenge of aging, it would be popular I think.

Thank you, dear loyal supporters!
Not sure which category of forums (or fora as I'm sure my Latin teacher would insist--even though i failed my Latin O-level by 3 marks!) Learning to Love the Challenge of Ageing would fit in to. 'Other topics' sounds a bit boring--what do you think Greatnan, Shysal and AD?
I think it could be interesting, though...

It is a bit of a come-down after the event. Most of those in my Marathon group last year felt the same, enjoying the glory, relaxing, putting on weight and suddenly wondering, what's next? I decided to do a few shorter runs and developed the 5 Half Marathon Challenge for this year. I too am beginning to wonder what next for 2013? If you would like something really different, try writing the Gransnet bedtime story. Why not? I little girl who found learning a language difficult maybe?

I don't think the category is important, Sue - just put it in 'Chat' with a self-explanatory title and we will find it.
I haven't risen to the challenge of ageing - I have just given in. Once I retired and left London , I gave up make-up, contact lenses, high heels, skirts, hairdressers, dying my hair and buying fashionable clothes. I have had to buy new trousers because I have dropped from a size 18 to a size 14 (by walking!) and I have just spent €55 on good walking boots from Decathlon. Otherwise, I am just wearing up all my old clothes. Some people have told me I could look much younger than my age of 72 if I 'made the effort' but I can't think of any good results which would follow from looking, say, 60!

Fortunately, the only health effects of age have been some hearing loss (which could be related to long term use of diclofenac) and a tendency to drop off in the afternoons. Of course, if I went to bed at a reasonable hour instead of reading until 2 a.m. I might stay awake during Countdown!
My arthritis in the knees and hips seems to have improved dramatically since I started taking really long, steep walks. I am not as sharp mentally as I was and I have the normal incidents of remembering putting something 'somewhere safe' and forgetting where that was.

Good luck to any woman who wants to fight the ageing process and I am sure we will get some very good tips, especially regarding health.

I don't think anyone worries which category a thread goes in, I hardly notice. 'Chat' or 'other topic' would be fine. I look forward to a humorous and interesting discussion.
I am just off for a walk organised by the Oxford Fieldpath Society, looks like the weather will be sunny for a change. My achilles tendons are playing up (joy of aging!) so will take ibuprofen before I go.

Have a good day, Shysal. I broke in my new boots yesterday with a two hour walk along a cross-country ski piste, so it wasn't steep. I am in Switzerland for another week, house sitting for Juragran, so I am finding new areas to explore. Yesterday was sunny and today looks fine, so I am off after breakfast for another lovely, scenic walk.
Isn't it wonderful to find a 'sport' that is free, healthy, and enjoyable!

It wasn't so much 'what's next'?, it was more like falling into an abyss of despair. I've more or less climbed out of it now, But--

I really don't enjoy doing things like housework, so as long as the place is reasonably clean and not too untidy, I think I need a project for 'acceptable displacement' of my time and energy--or a genuine reason not to do the never-ending chores you notice when you're at home.
My upbringing says 'do those first, then you can do what you want'.

I have a number of ongoing projects--like making photo journals of various study/travels I've done in India, China etc. I just need to give myself permission to take the time to do them! And not feel guilty about leaving a drawer not-tidied!

Maybe I'll start with a Gransnet bedtime story, who knows! Or start another topic (or maybe another marathon walk......!)
Have a great weekend everyone

You have proved that you are up to a really hard challenge - sod the housework, it will be there when you are gone - just enjoy yourself. You have earned it.
I would have liked to enter the story competition, but it is open only to UK residents!

That's the best advice on housework I've ever had! Thanks Greatnan

Good thoughts to Frankel for his Holkham Hall 10K--and to daughter dearest for her London Royal Parks Half marathon this morning, Just off to cheer her on

Then back to reconsider my life's Way Forward and deciding whether to grow old(er) disgracefully--or gracefully. Anyone remember that Judy Collins' song from the late 60s I've looked at life from both sides now? .......

Wore my 'progressives' most of the day yesterday and it didn't feel three bad.
Even the tired and irritated skin around my eyes is feeling better. Not sure if this is because of less sun--or, maybe, less eye-strain?

Oh what a vain __ I've been. But learning to 'embrace' these things is a huge new learning curve.

All thoughts welcome...

We made it round the Astro Holkham Hall 10 Mile Walk on Sunday, slowly but surely with a break in Wells-next-the Sea. The weather was glorious - a lovely family occasion.

I ran 9 miles today to get fit for Run-to-the-Beat Half Marathon - that was OK but not nearly as pleasurable. I also found out that in order to run in my Astro shirt (rather than the official race shirt) I have to present myself at the Help Desk at the 02 on the morning before the run. I will have to do it but it is one of the things that makes this grumpy old man, grumpy!

Not sure if you've been espeacially vain, GrandmaMiney. All the ladies I know are trying to keep looking as young as they can. Maybe it's an in-built factor that women have. This is not a sexist comment - I'm sure men have some too but we don't like to talk about them.

Well done, Frankel.
And if caring how you look is an inbuilt factor in women, something must have gone wrong in my manufacture!

I have known some vain men in my time - not least my ex.