I must, I must, I must work out my carbs...(warning - boring chunter follows)

Again, unless you're an Eighties' child, and, perhaps, more specifically, an Eighties' girl, who happened to read books by a certain author whose books saw a bit of a "craze", perhaps more specifically Judy Blume, and read a certain book by that author, perhaps more specifically, "Are you there God? It's me, Margaret", then you won't recognise the roots of that blog post title.

It's just me, isn't it?

Oh well, anyway, I must work out my carbs, having wasted the first part of my evening messing about on the internet and eating. So I thought I would combine the first of these things with the task-in-hand and try to work it all out in a blog post. Neat, huh?

So. They say (Them Wot Is In The Know) that during a marathon, you'll typically use up about 30-60g of carbs per hour. I need to work out how many gels I'll need, and how much Lucozade Sport I will need to glug at each of the Lucozade Sport stations - which are every 5 miles. Water stations are every mile, but we can discount those completely, because water has no carb value and I will probably run straight past most of these mile-stations (unless it's very hot). No hyponatraemia for me, thanks very much.

So. SIS gels are somewhat lighter than other gels, which gives them the advantage of being much more palatable and even refreshing. In the Forest of Dean Half, which was quite hot, they seemed really rather refreshing to me, anyway. However, this gives them the disadvantage of not containing as many carbs as other gels. Frankly, I'd rather have to consume the gels more frequently than be gagging and hacking after taking one and trying desperately to wash away the taste.

Each SIS gel contains 22g of CHO. Lucozade sport contains 6.6g CHO per 100ml, and, on the big day, is served up in 330ml bottles - so each one will contain around 22g of CHO. Ooooh, that's convenient. Now, in training, jogging along at a comfortable pace sipping Lucozade Sport frequently from my Camelbak and with gels in my belt, I've noticed feeling the need for a gel every three miles or so. Which would be about right - two gels per hour (just over, because I won't be able to keep 10min/mile dead up for 26 miles!!), plus some sippages of Lucozade, and I'll be well sorted. I should probably aim to drink most of a bottle of Lucozade in order to keep my fluid levels up, but I will probably opt more for sipping the Lucozade for about a mile, then abandoning it and getting some water from one of the stations. I don't like having a lot of stuff sloshing around inside of me whilst running, it just gets uncomfortable. On my last 20-miler, I just about finished off the entire capacity of my Camelbak over 3hrs 50 - 1.4l of Lucozade. Most people would probably say that's not enough fluid, and, certainly if it's very hot I'd need to take more, but that works for me. And I didn't feel unwell at the end of that run.

So, if I take a gel every three miles that'll be 3, 6, 9, 12, 15, 18, 21, and 24. Good, that'll be just perfect timing for the last gel to be fuelling the last mile or so. That means I'll need 8 gels. I'll be seeing my supporters at mile 15 and the RW supporters at mile 17, so I can leave gels with them for the last part of the race. So I'll need four in my belt to start with, have one off the "Support Dr Cath!!" crew at mile 15, and then I'll give the Mudchute crew three to give me at mile 17. Which is convenient, cos I think four is about the total capacity of the pouch on my belt!!

Did you get all that? Great. Now, can you explain it to me, please?

Random Acts Of Kindness

This evening, I've reached - and now passed - my original fundraising target of £2,000.

Throughout last night and this morning, my fundraising whipped smartly through the £1,950 mark thanks to some lovely colleagues, whom I've never met but have conversed with both socially and professionally via a professional website, Doctors.net.

This evening, the £2,000 target was smashed by someone I've never met, but had contact with through the AUK message boards.

And then, a few minutes later, another person took the fundraising well beyond the target. I've never met this person and was, indeed, unaware of their existence. I've never had contact from them before and may never again.

I'm extremely awed and touched by all of this activity on my fundraising page over the past 24 hours. I'm moved by the fact that so many people, who have never met me, are so prepared to give me such support.

Asthma is funny like that. It's a phenomenon probably shared by other illnesses, but there's something about Asthma. Maybe it's the whole not-being-able-to-breathe thing. Unless you've experienced it, you can't really know what it's like. We can do our best to try to show you, by pinching your nose and making you breathe through a straw, but we can easily release your nose and let the straw drop. If only aborting an asthma attack were so simple.

Just looking over my sponsor forms & JustGiving, I've had 78 donations. My M-I-L has another two sponsor forms, but I'll have to discount them cos I ain't got 'em here. Of those 78 donations, a massive 38 have come from people I have either never met, or met only very briefly in "real life". That's just awesome - literally.

The internet has been hailed as both a blessing and a curse - but for now, I have to call it a blessing, for enabling me to get the word out about my marathon so widely, and for allowing me to "meet" some truely amazing people.

Thank you all so much.

The further you take my rights away, the faster I will run...

Well, the whole carb-depletion thing lasted a whole 48 hours. Having felt almost constantly hungry for that 48 hours, I woke up on Saturday morning feeling shakey, nauseated, and generally knackered. So I ate three slices of toast and marmalade and started to feel much better. Came to the conclusion that, as a skinny minny, I probably don't really have the reserves to try doing without carbs for long. Never mind.

Now I'm filling myself full of carbs and protein, loading up the muscles ready for the big day. Last night I had a little pootle out and about - and it was a lovely evening for a run, apart from a group of young chav lads on push bikes who insisted on constantly whizzing past me down the bypass, so I turned back and left them to it. Nice gentle 3.25miles overall. I might go out on Thursday - just a very gentle 1-2 miles to keep the legs ticking over - but otherwise, that's it.

I had a mad panic-24-hours from Sunday to Monday - akin to the kind of feeling I got before taking my MRCGP exams - but I think that may have been partly just feeling knackered. I was away at the weekend on a GP-update course, and the hotel room on the Saturday night wasn't exactly a restful environment as we seemed to be situated under the lift motor. Hey ho. After going out for my little run last night, I felt much better - something to do with the immensely relaxing feeling of a nice jog in lovely fresh Spring air, accompanied by the strains of "Something Inside So Strong" by Labbie Siffre.

I know that I can make it.

The List

FLM Pack - race number letter, magazine
Passport (need this for photo ID for getting my number at the Expo)
Energy gels - some labelled for dropping off at Expo
SIS powders
AUK running vest
Top for wearing under the vest
Vizion jacket
Fuel belt
SIS bottle + another flask for afters
Grey running trousers
Tracksuit Trousers
Hoodie
Spare t-shirt
MP3 Player for chillout beforehand (plus spare battery)
Buffs x2
Tissues
Ventolin inhaler x2
Spacer
Paracetamol & ibuprofen
Spare laces
Compeed
Plasters
Safety pins
1st aid kit
Marker pen
Biro
Pace bands
Loperamide
Rucksack
Spare trainers & socks or flipflops
Sun cream
Sports bra-top
Sunglasses
Hotel booking letter
Garmin + charger + cradle + chest strap
Phone charger
Cromoglycate eye drops


Can anyone think of anything else?

STOP! Taper Time!

Ok, so unless you're an Eighties' child, that title probably won't make much sense to you. You'll be sitting there looking non-plussed whilst the rest of us start humming "Nerrr na-na-na, naaaaah naa".

So, having done my twenty-miler, it was time for the taper to start. "Tapering" is the process of cutting down your training mileage, ready for the big day. For a short race, with a short training period, you're likely to only do a taper of a week or two. Because it's the marathon, and I've been training since, oooh, about November, on/off for the first couple of months, I'm doing a long taper of four weeks. Liz Yelling said I should.*

I've really rather enjoyed the last couple of weeks. Done a couple of speed sessions, some nice little trots, and generally got back to enjoying the running a little more. Plus the added bonus of having the light nights back, which has been lovely and actually allowed me to run in the light most of the time!

So now I'm looking at the next few days. I will be going for a programme of carbohydrate depleting/carbohydrate loading, which basically means I go on the Atkin's Diet for five days then stuff myself with potato. Or something like that. I don't know if I will make it the full five days - I can see myself craving carbs pretty quickly - but I'll do my best. Still haven't quite figured out what I am going to have for my "work-day" breakfast that doesn't involve carbs...

And, in other news, I wiped 3mins 10seconds off my 10K time at the AUK 10K at the weekend!! Wooooooo----hoooooo!! My PB now stands at 54:12. I am well chuffed I managed to break my previous PB and get a sub-55min 10K in one. Next goal will be a sub-52 10K, I think...

I am starting to get a bit nervous about the whole marathon thing now. I think this is because I have been planning this for so long (I booked the hotel back before Christmas!) and have all kinds of mental images about what might happen, doing the race, etc. Now it's getting scarily close. There are only twelve days left before the big day, and just over a week before we leave for the Big Smoke. Today I have mentally planned out my last training runs prior to the marathon. That is really scary. Months and months of training, and now I'm planning out the last ones.

In fundraising news, my total now sits at £1,762.02. I'm overwhelmed at the generosity of everyone who has sponsored me. Months back I was sweating about how on earth I was going to raise £1,000, let alone the £1,500 that AUK wanted me to raise. Thank you all so much!

And, if you're feeling guilty that you haven't yet sponsored me, can I persuade you to pay a visit to my fundraising page now? *cheeky grin* The link's on the left-hand menu. Thank you.

Right, well, I did promise myself at some point that I would blog about running with asthma, so I think that might well be the subject of my next blog post. Together with a list of stuff I need to take with me to London. And my experiences of going ketotic on a carb-depleting diet....



*Sort of. Well, she recommended it in an article in Runners' World.