The Sunday Column - News update

There's been a few developments in the campaign lately so this week's column is dedicated to bring you all up to speed on these, along with other musings.

John Craddock will formally kick off this year's campaign on Monday week, that's the 27th, when he takes part in the Dublin marathon. We're both in tapering mode which means no booze or training until after our races. I may even consider giving up caffeine, maybe.

Before all that I've a feature appearing in Tuesday's Irish Times related to the event. It'll be in the Health supplement and focuses on the unique physical challenges facing a man of my build that opts to do a marathon. Keep an eye out for it.

We've received plenty of reaction to this post where we're looking for you all to suggest songs for my iPod playlist. Keep recommending tunes please. Every song you suggest will be played so long as we can find it.

Healthwise, the cold is setting in. I still feel grand for the most part and am piling in vitamin C and soup. I am getting a tad stressed about this whole matter so my apologies if you run into me and I seem a bit on edge about it.

16 days to cease being ill

I don't look ill and in truth I don't feel all that unwell, at least not yet. Deep down, inside me, however it's coming and the signs are already showing. The croakiness in my throat, the feel of the wind outside deep in my lungs. That most inevitable winter irritation. A cold, one of the simplest of ailments. One that could do serious damage to my marathon hopes.

Now reading this you might be thinking that a cold isn't that bad. In general you're right. A person can still work while they have a cold, indeed for the most part they can still socialise and they'll still get over it reasonably quickly. Time however is the only cure. Time is a limited commodity.

In 16 days I line up for the 2008 New York City Marathon. I have 16 days to get the full onset of the cold and get over it. After the race doesn't matter a hoot to me. I can catch the worst flu or chest infection since 2001, when I missed a full month of college because of such ailments, and I'll consider it a fair trade.

Getting this now is not what I need. I've had to stop training a week earlier than planned. I'm wrapping up heavily whenever I leave the house. Every possible step is being taken to keep well, yet every one feels futile.

There's no cure for the common cold, I just have to wait it out. Powerless to act all I can do is hope the full onset happens soon and isn't too harsh. Then at least I can work on the recovery. The clock is ticking.

The Sunday Column - The last big runs

I am breathing heavily as I write this. I'm set to 'taper' in a week (more on that further on) so I needed to get in a couple of decent length runs before then. Thus this morning and yesterday I hit the mean streets of Ranelagh.


'The Distance', by Cake

I had contemplated doing the Simon Community's 5 miler in the Phoenix Park on Saturday morning but getting out there in time for the 10.30 start was just plain unfeasible.

Instead I opted to do a similar distance around my own area in Ranelagh. I've a lap of the area set out that's just under 2 miles long so three of these would be ample replacement. At 11am with my iPod on my arm I set out from Anna Villa. Around the corner on Ranelagh Road I encountered what would be a recurring obstacle that morning.

Babies, lots of babies. Ranelagh's full of them in their buggies, being rolled around and generally proving an obstacle to cumbersome runners like myself. If slalom running ever becomes an Olympic sport I'm a shoo-in for gold in the over 100kg category.

In my haste to get around them I realised that I had done an awfully fast first mile, I kept this up for the rest of the lap and was duly feeling it with two thirds of my run still to go. I ran a much slower second lap, as more toddlers swarmed the streets of my adopted village.

Up by Belgrave Square I took a mild breather before getting going again. Word to the wise, when you're feeling wrecked and need to keep running 'Stronger' by Kanye West (yes I know it's just a Daft Punk cover, but it's a great cover) is quite a good choice. In more refreshed form I took off on the final lap of the morning, slowing as I came to Birchall's at the corner of my road.

Later that day, having realised I wouldn't be drinking that night, I figured "Fuck it, I'll do another five tomorrow". So at 9.30am this morning I took off once again on another three lap stint.

Sundays are great. Parents are too tired or hungover to bring their kids anywhere, especially that early, so the roads were empty. Ranelagh was a virtually buggy free zone. The one family I did come across that could have impeded me even managed to spot me at a distance and the father moved the rest out them out of the way to clear a path (yeah, that dude's a ledge).

This morning's five was actually faster than yesterday, and both sets were done at a pretty hard pace. Thus I am sitting on my couch three hours later, still somewhat out of breath. Of course the flatmate isn't even out of bed yet, lazy sod.

The reason I decided to put in these two sets when I did was very much a matter of timing. From next Sunday I'll be tapering, which is the fancy way of saying taking it easy until race day. The typical advice is that runners don't do any hard runs in the two weeks before a marathon and instead just focus on staying loose.

So with my training nearly complete for this phase it was time to get in some good miles before race day. I'll likely do another five next Saturday morning before the tapering period begins.