However, the Half Marathon training plans starts with a 4 mile run, and that’s too much for me at the moment. SO, I’ve had to come up with my own plan, which starts with a 2 mile run on a Sunday (followed by 1 mile runs during the week) for 2 weeks, then 3 miles on Sunday (followed by 2 miles during the week) and building up gradually from there. Yes, it’s very little to start with, but that’s what injury does to you I guess.

So anyway, I walked down to Marlay park today (which is over a mile walk, and seemed like a decent warm up) to jog 2 miles. Iphone in it’s armband, all ready to go, when I found out there was no music on the iphone, as it had all been deleted when syncing with itunes. Bastards. I fired my my “may my run” app to log how long I was running and at what time/pace. Did the first mile in 8.5 minutes, an ok but not great pace, and felt like I was about to die. Kept going anyway, determined to make the 2 miles and I ran and ran and ran and ran. The app is set up to tell me every mile how far I have gone and how long I have taken. But the GPS must have gone offline or something, because when I eventually did reach 2 miles, I had been jogging for 25 minutes. If the app is right, I ran the first mile in 8.5 minutes, and the second in 17 minutes. Which is stupid, because my walking pace is a mile every 15 minutes, meaning I jogged it slower than I walk it.

So I’m not sure exactly how far I did jog in the end, but it was close to 3 miles by my reckoning. That’s great and all, but the whole reason for starting off REALLY slow with just 2 miles was to avoid injury to the leg, and sadly it’s really been at me since I got back home. Not killing me, but certainly not fine either. I’m doing all the exercises and stretches and massages that my resident physiotherapist told me to do, and I’m only due to run 1 mile on Tuesday, so hopefully by the time that comes around in wont be a problem, and I’ll be able to Run ryan, RUN!

Ryan Phillips is training to run the Dublin City Marathon on 25 October 2010. Over one third through the year now and he’s still not able to run more than 2 miles without getting injured. Things are starting to look a bit grim. Day 131 was Sunday 7 March 2010

Since I’m going jogging tomorrow and have been doing some form of exercise every day for the last 6 days, I decided to take the day off today and rest all the muscles and what not. This is a fairly thinly veiled way of saying, I got lazy and figured I could probably justify a day off, so I took it.

Then I did my best impression of the Russian Olympic Vodka Drinking team and horsed into a load of Vodka and Lucozade as though the nice people at Howl at the moon might run out soon. So, no exercise, I ate nearly a full White Sliced Pan and then a shit load of vodka. If anyone asks, marathon training is coming along really well….

Just Add Vodka

The only slight downside of the day was that my right leg was “at me” (which I believe to be the medical term) and caused a bit of pain. I’m really worried about that, not just because of the whole marathon training thing, but also because I’m skiing in 2 weeks and I don’t want to have any problems when I’m over there that would stop me flying down the Meribel slopes totally out of control.

The only other thing we did today was a bit of cleaning and clothes washing this morning (I concede the point, I am obsessed) and some internet browsing. We’ve seen a house we love on myhome.ie and we’re going to go and look at it during the week. We’ve no mortgage approval and weren’t really planning on buying at the moment, but what the hell, can’t do any harm.

Now I’m drinkin a vodka and coke (zero, in case you’re wondering) and getting ready to go into town with the lads. Orla is staying at home. There’s a steak in the fridge which I’m supposed to be cooking, but the student in me can’t seem to let go of the mantra “eating is cheating”. This has disaster written all over it!

Check out my photos below, impressive right?