Unfortunately I’ve had a bit of an extended absence. With only weeks to go, my year of recovery; of healing, of choosing happiness hit an unexpected roadblock with some tragically awful news.

I won’t go into details but what I will talk about is how shockingly easy it was for me to slide straight back into bad habits in a matter of days. The first few days one might argue were due to shock and an inability to process the news. I stopped exercising. I stopped watching what I ate. I started drinking again and for the first time in months I bought a pack of cigarettes.

The first few days rapidly turned into weeks where I was finding excuses to keep drinking, to keep smoking, to keep finding ways to forget and to stop thinking. All the fitness gains I’ve made over an agonisingly slow period may have been lost by this point.

But that was then and this is now. I realise that there is no real excuse for this behaviour. I can’t fall apart every time life delivers another challenge. Mental fortitude is a lifetime effort and honestly, I honour no one’s memory by falling back into bad patterns.

Im under no illusions about my potential completion time in the marathon at this point but the least I can do is take it seriously and resume my training even if I have to walk 42km on the day.

I can’t say I will always make the right choices but I’m awake now and determined to at least try and be better.

It’s fitting that this week’s entry is late as it has been a week of poor planning and training.

This was my first week back in the UK after my amazing trip through Asia and I was faced with a bit of a predicament. On the one hand, I felt like my training was going ok and I didn’t want to lose momentum. On the other, my cough still hadn’t gone away so the gym wasn’t an option (it’s just impolite isn’t it) and I don’t think I’m quite mentally strong enough yet to run in the cold rainy reality of an English Winter.

As a result, I found myself continuing my short bursts of indoor training with some body weight exercises but utterly failed to go for a single run – and to cap it all off; I missed my deadline for posting.

Next week is already looking up however – it’s day 1 and I’ve already got my first 5k run and gym session out the way so fingers crossed I’ll be posting about my successes in just under 6 days….

Much like the previous week, I spent all of week 20 living it up in Asia which meant that again I wasn’t really sticking to the intended training schedule and once again a lot of this was mitigated by the fact that I spent most of my days hiking, swimming, kayaking and walking around on tours. As a result, I think I’ve done enough so that I shouldn’t be seeing any drastic setbacks but I’ll find out shortly I guess!

One thing that does continue to be a concern is my overall health. My cough has again worsened and it being the third one in twenty weeks (handy having a blog to keep track of these!) I think it indicates a poor level of health overall and I’m also concerned that it usually takes me out of the gym and prevents me from running.

I’m not planning on making any drastic changes to the plan but I think I will need to start ramping up distances. My aim is to be able to talk about a 20km run by the end of the next four week segment and continue to steadily churn out 5km runs three times a week.

Fingers crossed!

Nb. I actually submitted this in time but for some reason it didn’t post…nvm

So at the end of last week I flew out to Asia with visions of exotic runs through foreign cities and hotel room work out sessions in lieu of a real gym. In practice, I didn’t do any of that. Now partly this was due to my illness sure (yes I’m ill again…I think my body punishes me with illness every time I stop working out for more than two days…) I actually don’t feel too bad but the death rattle is back and I sometimes feel like I’m coughing up a lung.

The other reasons are a bit more complicated. Firstly, I just didn’t really feel safe enough to run in Manila. It’s a great city sure but a combination of crowded streets, poorly maintained roads and chaotic traffic meant that I wasn’t keen on a predawn or night time run on my own (as I’d be out during daylight hours).

Secondly, I actually found myself doing quite a lot more touristy things that wore me out and as a result I’ve actually done quite a lot of physical activity other than running including:

– 2 volcano/mountain hikes (uphill, in the heat and not an insignificant distance)

– Significant amounts of walking (just taking my sister around lantau island, Hong Kong, Manila etc meant I was clocking up an average of 20k steps a day

– a LOT of swimming (we spent the whole of today essentially swimming, snorkelling and then hiking over and over again).

– one or two quick hotel room sessions (press ups, crunches, squats etc)

So whilst I’m disappointed that I didn’t quite deliver on my aspirations, I also don’t think this was necessarily a “bad” week either. Who knows, maybe I’m just making excuses but I’m having too much fun to care right now!

Week 20 is another rest week but I will again aim to get

Happily, this was another good week for training to maintain the momentum from last week. The final tally:

4 x resistance sessions

1 x circuit session

1 x cycling session

2 x runs

Again, only 1 run away from 100% completion but in my defence, I hopped on a flight Friday night to Hong Kong which seriously cut into my training time.

Next week (19) will present a whole new challenge as I try to keep up the training whilst in a foreign country and without access to a gym. The plan is to fit in a lot of bodyweight exercises that I can do in the hotel room and a lot of HIIT sessions. The runs will also be interesting as I try to plot a reasonable route in an unfamiliar and stiflingly hot climate but I’m pretty excited – plus another rest week is on the horizon so I’m sure I can pull through. The one thing that could hold me back however is that I’ve somehow manage to contract yet another cold. I’m keeping it at bay with heavy doses of vitamin C and cold medicine for now but the concern is that it will derail my training as the last one did… Time will tell but I’m hoping for the best!

After a rather optimistic rest week and with much higher morale, week 17 was destined to be successful!

The result?

4 resistance sessions, 1 circuit session, 1 cycling session.. but only 2 runs. Not quite the 100% completion rate I’d hoped for but certainly not a bad result either. Whilst I’m disappointed that I didn’t squeeze that last run in, there were a few promising developments:

1. The weight loss I was promised has FINALLY started to materialise! I’m officially down by over 5kg and I could not be happier
2. Related – my shirt collars now close for the first time in over a year 😳. I have a whole range of suits and ties that I’m dying to reintroduce into my wardrobe.
3. Whilst I’m not quite hitting the old PBs, my resistance workouts are gradually creeping back to the right levels and I’m starting to feel much stronger.

So all in all, a pretty exciting week for me. I’m hoping to maintain the momentum – as I’m going to Asia for two weeks this Friday it may mean a few exotic runs in the far east and some hotel room calisthenics but I’m still super optimistic.

Fingers crossed I can keep this up and also really start focusing on getting those miles in and/or bringing those times down.

See you next week!

So about 4km into my run on Monday i realised that this was supposed to have been a rest week. Oops. Tempting as it was to skip it altogether, my training has been less than perfect so I needed to maintain some semblance of a plan and i’d certainly caught it early enough that it wasn’t really an issue. It was also a great time for me to reevaluate once again – and that’s really one of the main reasons you build in rest weeks at all!

That being said; riding the high of last week and with renewed determination, I’d predicted a fairly productive week and I’m pleased to say that I was able to realise that and also return to a slightly more rigorous training regime.

3 runs, 3 resistance sessions and 1 hiit circuits session later, I’m over the moon and hoping that I can maintain this momentum and do even better in the next cycle.

On top of that, my appetite seems to have receded slightly such that I’m eating less overall (although porridge and salad usually occupy two of my meal slots during the weekdays anyway – hardly a decadent lifestyle…) And I’ve somehow lost 2kg along the way!

All good news, but at the same time I really don’t feel that I’ve been putting enough effort and consequently I’m also not seeing much improvement in my actual running or overall fitness.

More. I need to do more. More running. More training. More consistency. There’s no real way around it and the only thing stopping me is me (how cliche).

I won’t be making too many changes to the plan right now – I’m dropping Pilates as I just can’t commit to the same time slot every week given work pressures and I’m considering a return to martial arts instead to try and squeeze in something else I used to enjoy immensely. The resistance sessions are now more focused (gotta start working on that summer bod now to give me maximum time to train!) and the long run needs to be 10km minimum now and I’m hoping to get to 15km by the end of the next cycle.

I’ve got another holiday coming up in two weeks that I will need to plan around but I have high hopes for this coming week too. Fingers crossed.

Another week, another moment where i find myself sat at the end of an epic few days of raving – Amsterdam Dance Event this time and wow what an event. Its almost inconceivable that I can go from my desk at work straight through to one of the biggest events of the year in less than two hours. And wow what an event. What a trip. What an experience.

But I digress… Back to the training update. After a dismal performance last week I managed to squeeze in two gym sessions and two runs so I’ve hit my soft target but fallen short of the stretch goal. I have a great feeling about this coming week as I’m slowly moving into my winter groove and have also learnt to Netflix my way through the boredom of treadmill running.

Stay tuned….

Honestly there’s no real way around it – this was a failure of a week for me.

Winter has finally arrived with a vengeance and between the drop in temperature, the fading sunshine, rain and general stress at work I’ve found my resolve wavering and this week, short of a single gym session, I failed to do much meaningful training. To compound the issue, my social calendar is starting to pick up again and I’ve found myself drinking a fair bit lately which really can’t be great for the regime.

Today was meant to be a redemption of sort as I had planned for a 13km run on my way to see a friend – route plotted, bag packed, showers arranged but then I woke up to the mother of all thunderstorms and had to cancel. Sitting down and reviewing this week honestly; I really have no one else to blame but myself (quelle surprise). Sure, today was a washout but I should have planned better and factored in the weather and I had ample opportunity to make up my other runs at the gym but chose to hibernate from the cold.

Its difficult for me to admit the moment of weakness without trying to create excuses for myself but ultimately I need to refocus and do better. I’m actually on holiday for three days at the end of the week so the aim will be to fit at least two runs and two other training sessions in before Friday.

Roll on week 15…

So I waited an extra day to find out the result of the London Marathon ballot…

Unfortunately as you can see, I didn’t make it in! But I did get a very cool jacket for donating my fee. This ultimately means that I will definitely be running the Manchester Marathon in 2019 which means slightly less time to train and a sightly better chance that I might try to do another Marathon (London) in the future.