Along with large quantities of miles to be run, I am also trying to raise large quantities of money for the Andrew Flintoff Foundation, as I have mentioned before.

It has taken a while, but my JustGiving page has been set up and I’ve started getting donations there…so far I’ve raised just over £500, but that still means there is a long way to go to get to my goal of £3000.

If anybody would like to donate to the cause, it would be hugely appreciated, and would help this great cause continue with it’s amazing work, and it would also keep me going for the many miles ahead of me.  JustGiving is a really easy way to give money…a few clicks and a few details and that’s it, and the charity benefits from getting the money within two weeks of you donating it.

Please visit my page at:

http://www.justgiving.com/AndyByrne

The page gives you more information about the challenge and the charity.  I know that times are hard at the moment, but anything that you can give would be hugely appreciated!!!  Thank you!

I will keep posting on here to keep you up to date of my miles and my fundraising, and also hopefully keep giving you some useful tips as I stumble across them.  I hope that you find these tips useful and enjoy my blogs…even if they aren’t as structured as Mary-Anne’s!!

I don’t know how, but somehow three months have passed since my last blog entry.  A lot has happened I can assure you…a lot of miles, some injuries, a race debut and a dramatic change in weather.

Last time I wrote, I’d managed 46 miles and was stuck inside with 6 inches of snow outside.  After 104 days of the year, I’ve now run 683 miles with the small issue of 1327 miles still to go to finish my challenge of 2010 miles for the year.  I’m sure, like me, a lot of you will be enjoying the sunshine which is certainly making running in the evenings a lot more tempting.  However, it has forced me to look into my hydration a little more.  With my long runs now reaching 20 miles on a Sunday, I have found that I need to take on quite a bit of water now that it is warmer.  The only problem with this is that I get shoulder pain from carrying the bottle (clearly I’m such a finely tuned athlete, that a bottle of water is enough to cause problems!).  Apparently, this is not particularly unusual, and for anyone else who might have this problem, I suggest you invest in a “tool belt”…a belt similar to a bum bag that you can put your bottle in, and any gels, jelly babies etc…saves you carrying things and it makes you look much more professional.

As I mentioned, I have been struggling slightly with various minor injuries, all of which I could put down to increasing my mileage too quickly and not stretching sufficiently.  Despite my Physio background, I, like most of you, was doing a brief stretch prior to and after a run and that was about it, but I found that my quads, and ITB (band down the outside of your thigh) was getting increasingly tight causing me knee pain, which was painful enough to make me stop running.  Since this wake up call I have done a daily stretching regime, as well as dynamic stretches (stretches with movement) prior to a run, and static stretches (your old fashioned ones) after all my runs.  The difference has been huge…not only has my knee pain disappeared but also the general tightness and aches and pains I had put down to just doing lots of running have reduced massively!…try it..you will be surprised.

Having done lots of training (and stretching), I finally took part in my first race at the Wilmslow Half Marathon.  I was a little nervous, and not quite sure what to expect so probably started a little too far back in the crowds, and paid for it with a very slow first couple of miles trying to get passed some much slower runners.  I then spent the rest of the race trying to make up for lost time finishing in a time of 1 Hour 37 minutes and 47 seconds, which, although respectable, was not as fast as I’d hoped, mainly due to the poor start.  And so for my last words of wisdom for this blog entry…if you are even a vaguely serious runner (in that you are aiming for a particular time rather than just to finish), then make sure you start further forwards than you think you perhaps should.  This way you can run at your own pace and will not be tripping over others at the start.

So, after deciding that training for, and running a marathon just wasn’t hard enough, I have now decided to challenge myself a little further.  I will be aiming to run 2010 miles in the year of 2010, aiming to raise at least £2010 for the Andrew Flintoff Foundation.  For those of you who don’t know, the AF Foundation is a charity that raises funds to build, develop and improve Child Rehabilitation & Physiotherapy Units throughout the UK.  For more information visit:  http://www.affoundation.co.uk/home

To reach my target I will need to run 5.5 miles every day for a year, although I will be aiming to run on five days a week to give myself a chance to rest and avoid burn out.  That does of course mean some longer runs, but hey, I’ll be running 26.2 miles on June 5th so that will help.  As with all challenges like this, it seemed like a good idea at the time, but slowly as my friends point out that I will have to run when I go on holiday, and if I’m feeling ill etc, I’ve realised it was somewhat foolish.  However, if it raises lots of money then it will all be worth it, and I’m already looking forward to 2011 for a rest!!

You can follow my progress on http://my.nike.com/Sebber82 as well as here of course….it’s sure to be a lot of hard work but hopefully some fun along the way too!

So my last few blogs entries have given you a brief insite into the early parts of my training.  However, it has been suggested by both the critics and my fans that they would like tips from a Physio regarding training for a Marathon.  With that in mind, as I’m always eager to please, I have formulated my “Ten Tips for Twenty Ten”, the title of which was chosen more for its alliteration than it’s content you understand!

1.  Enter a race!  Until I entered a Marathon I managed to run maybe twice a month as I found some genuinely excellent reasons why I shouldn’t go for a run.  Now I have something to aim for, I actually enjoy going!  More importantly my body is now used to running and so I don’t hurt as much after the runs.

2. Get the right kit.  This does not mean getting the most expensive trainers and running shorts and shirt.  However, if you are going to be doing a lot of running (which you will be if you are training for a marathon) then the right running shoes, as well as appropriate clothing, will reduce the chance of injuries.

3.  Build up your running slowly, and aim for a steady pace.  Most people who get injured when they start running  do so because they build up their training too quickly, and don’t allow their bodies to strengthen and become accustomed to the new stresses being put through the joints and the muscles of the lower limbs in particular.  Another way of getting injured is trying to run too quickly too early in a run, without having warmed the muscles up.

4. Stretch! You can happily read millions of articles about stretching all of which will be totally contradictory and leave you confused.  I would recommend stretches are held for between 20 and 30 seconds, and are applied slowly without “bouncing”.  They should be done regularly as part of the warm up and cool down, and I still stretch certain “problem areas” on the days I’m not running as well.

5. Cross train.  To avoid injuries it is important that you are not over stressing the particular joints and muscles used in running.  Try adding rowing, or swimming into your weekly exercise routine.  Swimming is particularly good as it is very good at building lung capacity, but it also gives your joints a rest from pounding on the roads.

6. Run on different surfaces. Try not to run on roads all the time, as this means that your ankles, knees and hips, as well as your lower back are taking a lot of force through them on a regular basis.  Try and build in runs on grass or dirt tracks…these runs will be slower but will be just as good a training exercise.

7.  If you are forced to run on a treadmill (as you will be in this lovely winter we’re having), add an incline to the run.  This will make it harder and mean that you don’t have to run on the treadmill for as long which can get very boring, and can also cause some people shin pain.

8.  Don’t ignore the niggles.  To a certain extent, when training for a marathon you are likely to have a few niggles, aches and pains along the way as you have to put a lot of time in training and it is demanding for your body.  However, do not ignore that achilles that always hurts after you’ve run, or that groin pain that comes on when running, or whatever part of you hurts more than it should.  Make sure that you get them checked out particularly if they are getting slowly worse.  If you ignore it for the months proceeding the marathon, Sod’s Law dictates that it will “go” a week before the race.

9.  Make sure you have rest days.  Going for a run is demanding on the body and it needs time to recover every now and then to avoid getting injured or over worked.  If your training schedule is quite tight with not much time to your race, then maybe the rest day would involve a gentle swim rather than a run so that you are still working on your fitness but avoiding using the same parts of your body as you would normally with running.

10.  Strenthen your glutes and core (for starters)!  When I strated running, I could feel that my pelvis was rolling around a lot, and by the end of the run my hamstrings would be tight and my back stiff and painful.  Since working hard to strengthen my glutes and core, these pains have disappeared and I feel more stable around my hips, which means I’m not wasting energy, and I’m less likely to get a hamstring strain because they are not having to work as hard.  Although a marathon is an endurance race, you still need to incorporate strengthening work into your work out…it will boost performance, as well as reduce your chances of getting injured!

These tips are in no particular order, but if you follow them, you will certainly reduce your chances of getting injured, and that means you just have to worry about running 26.2 miles in the best possible time!!..Simples!

I am not totally sure that I should use this title, as I’m not sure what type of foot fall to the site we will get from web searches…but it’s an important lesson!

By Mid-October, the running was going well.  The same could not be said of the weather. Sunday had become my “long run” day, and on this particular Sunday it was cold and it had just started to rain before I was going to go out. I wasn’t put off by this as I knew that training over the winter would involve a lot of cold, rainy runs!  So off I went on a 9 mile with no Ipod for fear of electrocution.  Despite many layers, I was soon resembling a drowned rat, and the only “positive” was that I couldn’t get any wetter.

Now for those of you with a sensitive disposition, I advise caution when reading further. I don’t know if any of you have tried running in the cold and wet, but it does present certain issues, which, as a novice runner, I had not considered. I had heard before of putting Vaseline on your nipples to avoid chaffing, but hadn’t actually thought about needing it for a 9 mile run: Serious mistake! If I can save anyone the pain that wet t-shirt on nipple causes, by them reading this blog, then my time will have been well spent. 

From that day forward, I ensured all precautions regarding my comfort were taken, having learned another valuable lesson the hard way!

When reading my first blog entry, some of the more observant amongst you will have noticed that there was mention of summer.  The decision to run the marathon was made in mid-September and as such the next few entries will be a “catch up” of the training so far…

…So, the running had begun and it had become very apparent that, if I was going to transport myself 26.2 miles without the use of some form of powered vehicle, I was going to need to do a lot of training!  I began the process of sifting through the thousands of “advice” articles on the internet, finally calling a halt to this process when an article informed me that “running a marathon is hard work”…a shocking revelation!

However, after many hours of avoiding running by sitting on the sofa finding advice on training, a few common themes arose.  Some I already knew, such as the need for a high carbohydrate diet.  What I didn’t know was that Jelly Babies, Jaffa Cakes and Fig Rolls are good sources of carbohydrates…cue a trip to the shops to buy as many Jelly Babies and Jaffa Cakes as I could: the Fig rolls had sadly run out (or maybe I didn’t look as hard for those).  With my new diet planned, although not entirely revolving around sweets, I just had to plan my runs.  Again there was a huge number of training plans online but the gist of them was a need for a mix of shorter runs, interval and speed training and a longer run each week.  Finally the only thing left to do was actually start running.

Over the next few weeks, I started running three or four times a week, mainly just trying to get into running, work on the distances a little and try and work on my fitness a lot!

The other nugget of information that I found was that if you do a lot of running you will need to eat more…something I was more than happy to follow, but it did make a huge difference to my energy levels.  Running the same distance on a day when I hadn’t eaten a good amount was infinitely harder than on a day when I had eaten a sensible amount – that is not to say that running that distance was anything other than hard work on any day though!

The distances increased from 3 miles, to 5 miles, to 9 miles over these weeks, more from learning what to eat and how to pace myself than a huge increase in fitness.  As a novice runner, I was very much learning as I went, using some of my Physio knowledge and some trial and error!