Hello and welcome back. It has been a good few weeks since I have blogged and it is good to be back in action. Even though I haven't been updating as often I would have liked recently, I have been training harder than ever and have still continued with my running every day. As always I will give you a brief summary of my progress with how many miles I have covered and how it has been going. Just a brief mention, all together £515 has be raised so far in less than 3 months. My target is £1000 so I am well on my way to this, thanking everyone who has donated. It is those that donate that make the real difference.!!!
At the moment I have currently run for 84 consecutive days with only 281 days remaining until my first rest day, not long to go now. Not that I am thinking that far ahead, I am enjoying what I am doing so want to make the most of this year and keep pushing myself to see what I can achieve. So after 84 days, I have run a total of 263.4 miles which is a daily average of 3.1 miles, roughly about 5km every day. I have also cycled 702.1 miles in total this year, I am very happy with this amount so far. It accumulates to 965.5 miles and about 84 hours in exercise, it doesn't seem too much on paper, but it definitely is. As I am cycling Lands End to John O'Groats in less than 12 weeks, my cycling will now have to take priority over the running. Even though when I do run, I put everything into and still want to do well in every event I partake in.
On the cycling side of things I will now have to start building in training both before and after work, as well as weekends to get as much saddle time as possible. With the clocks going forward soon and Spring on our doorstep, it will give me much more time to get out and about and get the miles in. Over the next 4 weeks I am aiming to cycle at least 100 miles a week and then step it up every week until the beginning of June. The week before my cycle I will basically rest up, eat and try and put on an extra few pounds which will help me over the ten days. Easier said than done when I will still have to cycle to and from work and run every day as well. The challenge is becoming very real but the nearer it comes the more excited I get.
On the 4th March I took my training overseas to the African Continent. I visited The Gambia which is situated in the North West of Africa. As I have already been visiting The Gambia for over ten years, I already had planned out where I would be running and rough distances. This was all depending on how many Julbrews (local beer) I would consuming during the week, turns out it was more than I expected, but I was on holiday so I was allowed. I arrived in The Gambia at about 3pm, as the other 11 people had already been drinking for about 10 hours it was hard work not getting involved, I knew I had to go for a run later on so I was well behaved.
On the first day I went running at about 6:30pm, being located on the beach front I thought this would be the perfect place to kick off my running. To be honest I was feeling tired and a bit dehydrated from the 6 hour flight, so didn't want to push myself too hard. When everyone else was round the bar, I was running down the beach, which wasn't the worst place to be in the world. I only did one mile on the first day, it wasn't on my own either. I had been running about 1 minute until I met a local guy called Abdou who asked if he could run with me. He had stopped his press up routine to come and join me and I actually enjoyed the company. I got talking to him at the end of my run and I explained what I was doing with regards to running every day. Straight away he said he would run with me every day no matter what time of day it was. I promised him that if he came with me I would give him my running shoes at the end of the holiday, but only if he turned up every time. If he missed one session then that wouldn't be happening. At that time he had some old converse trainers on that had clearly been worn for a long time. I asked him and he said it was the only footwear he had at the moment and hadn't had any new shoes for about 3 years. So I felt good straight away that I could help him out. I left him saying I would either be running at about 8am or 6-7pm at night and he agreed he would be there.
For the next couple of days I was on the beach for pretty much 8am, after a few drinks in the evening this was quite hard work and got harder as the days went on. As I walked onto the beach on both days, Abdou was sat on the beach about 50 yards down waiting for me. He had already been there for 30 mins doing his warm up, he was committed I have to give him that. We went on a slow and steady 2.5 mile and 1.5 mile run on the individual days. To make it a little competitive, we had a 100 metre sprint finish. It was like a scene out of rocky 3 at times... Rocky vs Apollo, Rocky winning every time, the script this time was rewritten in my favour. Don't think his shoes were designed for sprinting on the beach. He kept with my on both runs even with them only being short distances. These were the first proper runs of the year I have actually run with someone else so it was good to be able to relax and have a chat whilst doing it. Running on the beach was hard work though, the way the beach is set it was either soft sand or recently wet sand, both hard to run on. Was all good fun though.On the 4th day, I thought I would mix it up a bit. I had planned to go football training with my long term friend bassirou who I had met in the Gambia when I was 15 years old. Since we met he had pretty much been my best mate over there. He had always looked after myself and my family each time we had visited and I couldn't thank him more for that. Bassirou is a coach for about ten local junior teams, ranging fro 5-16 years old. Coaching them 4-5 times a week and spending as much time as he can improving their footballing skills. As I had been and helped him for many years, I had asked Stuart Cunningham to come and join me. He was a friend of my dads and it was his first time in The Gambia, so I wanted him to experience the real Gambia, get involved and to get away for the tourist side of things. We set of that morning at 8:30am for a 9am start for a 2 hour session. We got a local taxi, I should have really known the full address to the playing fields which would have made it easier. We ended up going to 3 football fields before we found the right one. The journey there was fantastic, as we had ventured through the backstreets of all the local villages, Cunny was taken on a tour of The Gambia which a lot of people don't see. The taxi driver even said we was the first white people he had taken to this football field. Cunny seemed a little nervous to say the least, but there was never any issues. Sorry Cunny, I honestly knew where we was going, just wanted to take you on a trip. If you have never been to a third world country, it is an eye opener. Houses aren't houses, they are huts. Families live together in compact spaces and sleep together. Drainage is down the sides of houses in some places and litter isn't collected and recycled like we are used to. As I have been many times before it isn't a shock for me anymore, but it could well have been an eye opener for Cunny.
Anyhow, once we had arrived at the correct playing field and met by Bassirou it was a lot more comfortable. We was greeted by about 40-50 children of all ages and within a couple of minutes we was both handed bibs of different colours and was straight involved with a game of 3 touch football of about 8 a side. As we was on different teams I think we had something to prove to each other. It was a competitive 40 minutes and us English boys weren't used to playing in the heat, but our good stamina played a part and the locals started to fatigue as well. I can speak for both of us when I say we was loving every minute of it. As cunny says, they didn't like a strong tackle.
After the 40 minute warm up and losing about 2 litres in sweat, it was time for the 11 a side game, which was against 16 year olds, all taller than myself. Me and Cunny were asked to play up front in a 4-4-2 formation. As Mike Bassett says, 'England will play 4-4-2'. From the kick off we was on the attack, the keeper and defence struggling to clear their lines resulting in a corner. From the corner chaos was caused resulting in another corner. They escaped a couple of goal mouth scrambles and clear to say the opposition was on the ropes. From nowhere though, a couple of nice passes from defence to midfield opened us up down the right hand side. The striker was put through and goal and against the run of play with their first shot they went 1-0 up. We was not happy, but it was good football that had led to the goal so no complaints could be made.
Within a few minutes the pressure was back on and we was on the attack. A whipped in ball from the right landed on Cunny's head but the defender put him off, the connection wasn't clean as the ball trickled wide. He then went onto have a moment of magic with another near miss. After some nice play in the midfield, Cunny squared up the defender, a few side steps and the defender didn't have a clue what day it was. He opened his body up and curled a shot towards goal that just flew wide of the post, great play though. Eventually after another 5 minutes the amount of possession we had paid off, some great play from the local boys down the right resulted in an equaliser with a few minutes on the clock. It was a hard fought battle and it went down to golden goal. Soon we was on the attack and our attack was too strong for the opposition. Some very neat footwork from Cunny set up the chance for an attack, we broke free and a ball was slipped in behind the defence, I had timed the run to perfection and hit a sweet strike through the keepers legs to complete to come back. It great English style, we ran off celebrating and making the most of the victory in which a few of the spectators got involved in - Have to say just taking parting in this was another great experience and one to remember!! This definitely classed as one of my runs as I covered over 4 miles within the session in temperatures above 25oC.The next day I went running through the local village and completed a 5km run, on the sandy streets next to the tarmac roads it was very hard. Really enjoyed it as it wasn't my normal run and was great to mix it up. The final few days I spent on the beach covering just over a mile on each of the runs. I have to admit the drinking and the fact I was on holiday started to catch up with me. I really struggled to run at any pace and was glad to see them over and done with, half of me was really looking forward to getting home as It was like all my previous hard work was being destroyed in a week of binging. On the last day I was on the beach at 7:30am, hungover and tired. Abdou was waiting again for me which I thought was brilliant. I had checked, even on the days I hadn't been on the beach, he waited for me to turn up - #commitment. I left him with my trainers and a pair of running socks, I gave him a few quid as well which would help towards a bag of rice to feed his family for a few weeks.
I have had to miss out the full 11 a side football game we also played in. England vs Gambia... Gambia won 3-1, but on a cold winters night in Preston we would definitely get the better of them. I have attached a link below if you want to watch highlights of the game.
https://youtu.be/nSpGoTcZla4
Overall the Gambia trip was one of the best I have had so far and hope to repeat it again in the next year or so. The running went well and I returned home injury free, hopefully the heat training would pay off. Being hungover, drunk, dehydrated and tired aren't the best states to go running in, suppose it meant the running back home would only get easier.
Once I had returned home, it took me about a week to return back to normal fitness. I did Cuerden Valley Parkrun 3 days after the holiday in a time of 20:35, which was 50 seconds slower than my time before I went away. Deep down I was fuming with this as I had trained hard pre holiday and it felt like it could take me weeks to return to normal. I went to the track session with Red Rose Road Runners that week and my times within the session ended up slower as well. On the timed mile I was a good few seconds off my previous best as well which was also disappointing. After that I knew I had to get back into the running and train hard, which I did.
That weekend I ran the Parkrun again and managed to set myself a PB in the valley with a time of 19:40, 55 seconds better than the week before, which did wonders for my confidence. The day after I took part in my first event being part of Red Rose Rode Runners. It was the 'Jacobs Leg It' 10k race at Edge Hill University. As I had only run that distance 3 times this year, I was really unsure how I would find it. On the day it was a great atmosphere and my body was feeling good. I set off at a good pace and managed to keep it up through most of the race. My final time was 38:52 which was another PB for myself, taking off over a minute and meeting my target of getting below 39 minutes. I finished 16th out of a total of 380 people which I thought was a great achievement. I also attended the track session again tonight with RRRR and set a new PB for the timed mile. My time was 5:17 which was 6 seconds better than my previous record. So even though I have had a week on holiday, it has taken me 2 weeks to get back on track and I am back on it again now. Who needs rest days?There is still a long way to go with my challenges but I am pleased with my progress so far. I have some hard times ahead but I will keep pushing myself harder as the year goes on.
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https://www.justgiving.com/end2endKH/
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