New Year, same race, same old excuses

Have trained, have lost pace and distance, have managed to strain/damage hamstring and am suffering just as I was trying to build up some return to form. It seems harder this year somehow but am determined to knock off those three minutes and go sub 2 hours so will press on regardless. After the niggling ITBS problems after GNR08 and then various illnesses and other miscellaneous reasons for not getting regular training in have now found that I am struggling for breath after a few km which is also a bit of a worry but I am jiggered if I am going to miss this year after the fun had last time round.

Hell, I even have a direct flight back from Newcastle on the Monday....at least until the airline pulls a fast one of course and sends it via Reykjavik or somewhere equally poverty stricken!

Gooday Troops

Hi from the not so large runner,

As i cannot make GNR this year as i have an off island thing planned already, plus they changed the dates, i have vowed to fight the Team Atko thing locally. so far i have listed to do most if not all of the 1/2 marathons with the aim of completeing the marathon at end of year (Yea Right)!!

Anyone wishing to see me in action should go to st. Peters Pub........sorry thats after.

Rab xx

Right then...

Before we knew it the race was upon us, then the money poured in and we ended up writing a big old cheque to the RNLI St Helier Lifeboat appeal for £17,000!

What an incredible amount of support people gave us! Thank you thank you thank you!

I don't know yet what our target will be this year, or indeed which charity/s we will raise money for - but needless to say I don't think we can better £17,000!

At the moment, eight members of Team Atko will be on the start line at the end of September, for the 2009 Bupa Great North Run. It is great to see the team carrying on what we started last year. This is all a bit of an extreme way of me getting my mates to visit -and it seems to be working!

I took a bit of time out from my brutal training regime - about 6 months actually and I am back to being a little larger than before, but still able to run a few K's without too much trouble.

Ian's birthday is on 12th of April so I hope to be ready for a 5k then and build slowly from there.

I was pleased with my time last year of 2 hours 38 all things considered, but I wont have cracked the Great North Run until I do it in under 2 hours!

So as of tomorrow - the training starts...

Anyone here??

Hello??? anyone here??

oh just you and me then, right, don't say anything, but i've started training properly!!

did three miles tonight. only twenty five weeks to go before i have to do thirteen!

it's going surpringlsy well!!

might be different after friday night's run....