Final Results, and the winner is.....

2012 is now behind us and it is with baited breath that I release the final results of this year long race. This has been the longest ever race/competition that I have ever been involved in, in fact it is probably the longest race/competition that I will ever be involved in.

Before I get to the final results there are just a couple of highlights that are worth mentioning. The first highlight came in literally as the new year was rung in, "The Guru" (aka Jona) sent a sly text to both myself (The Wannabe) and Mark (The Old Hand) saying how he was on his bike and earning himself the first place in the league table. This had originally been a ploy of mine, to literally go out for a run on the stroke of midnight, but I had drunk far too much to be able to get out in the cold and do this. At the moment the text came through I remember my heart sinking and I almost donned my running shoes to claw back the points. Instead I opened up another beer, poured myself another glass of wine or squeezed another lime into a glass of rum. I can't remember which. Maybe it was all three! Now then, the part which made it a highlight is that Mark did actually put his trainers on and jumped on his running machine. We only found out a week later that it was all just one big wind up by Jona and, since he was ever so slightly inebriated, Mark miscalculated his run and missed out some points by just 90 seconds. He was so gutted!

The other highlight also involved a text from that little Welsh puppeteer. This time the victim was yours truly and it involved press-ups and sit-ups. For some time Jona had been regularly completing 30 press-ups and 100 sit-ups a day. This sensible approach to reaching the desired total of 2012 was perfect because each day's totals were not enough to worry either Mark or myself but it all added up quite quickly. Before long I noticed that he was running away with the competition in this area and, as the points for this area would total 150, I decided my best bet was to try and catch up. To do this I started doing 90 press-ups and over 200 sit-ups a day. I was filling every moment of the day with these things, even to the extent of completing star jumps so Jona could see while he was finishing up his whole school assembly. This was working but I let it slip to Jona and he also upped the volume of his workouts. I kept it going but was just pipped to the post with regard to the sit-ups and Jona took the prize for that one. I kept up with the press-ups and through completing them in the morning, during break times and lunch times at school and then twice when I got home I was totaling 300 a day. We were both getting close to the 2012 desired total and I knew that if both of us really went for it then the total could be achieved in one more day. That is when I had the text from Jona. It was something along the lines of how he had just got home and was going to get started with the press-ups. I couldn't let this one slip like the last and I immediately got down to reaching my target. My wife and daughter just laughed at me while I ever so slowly reached the total but could no longer lift my arms for the pain was so unbearable. They thought I was mad for doing it. The next day was no better and was made even worse by Jona revealing that he had no intention of completing a single press-up that night as he went out with friends. The rest of the day was taken up with jokes about me not being able to lift a whiteboard pen to write on the board!

There are many happy memories, but the best has got to be a run I completed with Jona during my last week at Springfield Primary. It was the best way to finish the academic year, to release a little stress but to also spend a little time with The Guru, a man who has been an inspiration and motivator. Thank you.

But now it is time to get to the points. It has been a fairly close run race all year and even though Jona had to recover from his dislocated knee he quickly showed why he was assigned the nickname "Guru" and why Mark and I were both the amateurs. After Mark decided that "enough was enough" and "retired" from exercise as well as the challenge the competition stepped up a notch with both Jona and I becoming more and more competitive to the point of it getting really silly. 300 plus press-ups in a day being a good example of this. Points were quickly racked up but unfortunately the 2012km target was never quite achieved. I wonder if it was just a step too far or whether I didn't really have it in my motivational schedule.

Each of us recorded our own exercise, inputted it into a spreadsheet and when points were obtained we assigned them to our own totals. The totals at the moment are:

TOTAL POINTS
Jona	Roy	Mark
473 points	555 points	75 points

 

 The only points we didn't put on were for the "ongoing competition", the part of the competition when points are awarded to the person who is the fastest cyclist and runner of 2012m and 2012 yards, the fastest swimmer of 2012cm and 2012 feet and the person who can swim, bike and run the furthest in 2012 seconds. And this is where it gets really exciting because first and second place receive 100 and 90 points respectively and there are 6 of these up for grabs. I have just gone through all the records and believe I have now the results of this section.

First up is quickest swimmer:
Mark didn't complete any swimming so this was just between Jona and I.
My fastest swim was on the 14th November, 1200m in 44 minutes = 1.6km/hour
Jona's was on 28th August, 200m in 4.23 minutes = 2.8km/hour
Jona = 100pts, Roy = 90pts

Next is cycling:
Mark: 2nd January, 6.14 miles in 32 minutes = 11.5mph
Roy: 17th January, 8.2 miles in 30 minutes = 16.4mph
Jona: 1st November, 9.96 miles in 30.39 minutes = 19.7mph
Jona = 100pts, Roy = 90pts, Mark = 80pts

Fastest runner:
Mark: 1st January, 4.8 miles in 32 minutes = 9mph
Roy: 20th August, 1.8 miles in 14 minutes = 7.7mph
Jona: 15th December, 4.28 miles in 34 minutes = 7.6mph
Mark = 100pts, Roy = 90pts, Jona = 80pts

That part of the competition was meant to be in both metric and imperial (ie fastest 2012km & 2012 yards) so I think the points can just be doubled meaning Jona has just gained 560 points, I gained 540 points while Mark gained 360 points.

The last part of this section is the furthest distance in 2012 seconds. This is slightly different to the fastest as the competitor must complete 2012 seconds of the same activity which equals just over 33 minutes. This means all the cycling sets have to change. Here are the results

Furthest swim in 2012 seconds
Mark: Did not compete
Roy: 14th November, 1200m in 44 minutes = 914m/2012secs
Jona: 11th January, 2046m in 50.38 minutes = 1362m/2012sec
Jona = 100pts, Roy = 90pts

Furthest cycle in 2012 seconds
Mark: did not complete a ride greater than 33 minutes
Roy: 21st February, 16.41 miles in 62 minutes = 8.9miles/2012sec
Jona: 20th February, 17.34 miles in 60 minutes = 9.6miles/2012sec
Jona = 100pts, Roy = 90pts

Furthest run in 2012 seconds
Mark: 4th January, 5.1 miles in 35 minutes = 4.9miles/2012sec
Roy: 28th February, 5.7 miles in 47 minutes = 4.1miles/2012sec
Jona: 15th December, 4.28 miles in 34 minutes = 4.2miles/2012sec
Mark = 100pts, Jona = 90pts, Roy = 80pts

This gives Jona an extra 290 points, Mark an extra 100 points and me an extra 260 points. Those of you are are quick at calculating would have been able to work out that the new points for each competitor are

TOTAL POINTS
Jona	Roy	Mark
1323 points	1355 points	535 points

 
That's right, somehow I've managed to win, but only just. Ironically, if Jona had carried on and completed the press-ups then it would have been a different story no matter if he had been the first or last. 

This may not be the end of this story though, I could well have added up the points incorrectly, or missed a valuable speed trial and there may be some last minute additions that change it. Either way, thanks for everything everyone. Thanks to those people who have been following this epic battle. In the end there were over 440 different visitors to the blog from 10 different countries.

Do be sure to follow Jona's new challenge of completing 210 hours worth of exercise each and every 7 days. You can follow his tweets HERE

As for me, I'm not too sure, I have a half ironman to do in June, I think I'll give Jona's challenge a go, I've signed up to try and run 1000 miles in the year, details on FACEBOOK and TWITTER, as well as doing Jantastic and 5k a day in May.  Either way, I'll get some sort of update going HERE

Thanks again and have a happy new year.

All Is Quiet On The Western Front

I was just looking on here the other day and realised how long it had been since anyone had posted on here. It certainly has been a while. Has it been because we haven't been doing anything, has it been because we've been too lazy or have we just been too busy. I know what my excuse is, but what about the others?

For me, the truth is simply that I've lost some of my motivation and with that I've been focusing on other things. After the marathon there wasn't much for me to target towards, yes I had two sprint triathlons but I also knew I could complete those as they were nothing new. I guess the thing with me is that I need something to train for because at the moment the best motivation is just completing something. I've discovered that if the event is something big that I haven't done before then I'm more likely to train for it out of fear of failure.

What I need to do now is to get motivation to finish these races in a good time, and not just get round. I've got a completely different challenge coming up next year, hopefully between now and then I'll get motivated to go fast as well.

The Wannabe

50% of the Marathon Men can walk again

It's been a while since the last post so I figured I'd better put fingers to keys and get another blog post written. But what to say first?


Of course there is the fact that The Wannabe (me) is in the lead with the points, The Guru has steadily been increasing his mileage and The Old Hand has toyed with the idea of retiring from running.


There's also the fact that The Guru has signed up to the Luton Marathon and has desires to get a time that indicates he is "good for his age" and will therefore get automatic entry into the London Marathon.


But probably the most noteworthy news is that The Wannabe (me) and The Old Hand have completed the London Marathon and are walking normally again. Well, almost.... unfortunately The Old Hand had a slight accident in the first 10 minutes which meant that he had to travel, I won't use the word run, the final 25 miles/6+hours with a sprained ankle. He's been signed off work for the last two weeks so hopefully he'll be walking around next week.

Back to the London Marathon though, it was a great day with plenty of sunshine and no rain, at least for those who finished in a semi-reasonable time. As you can see by the picture of The Old Hand, right, he was ready for anything, apart from a pesky drain. He had his iphone on one arm tweeting out his progress every three miles, his ipod on the other arm giving him vital tunes to pound the streets to and a whole wristful of potential pace times.

Then there was me, left, with my pockets full of carb gels to give that well needed boost and an ipod, as well as my phone to hand, ready for those moments of boredom.

 

We both started the day in high spirits as there wasn't a cloud in the sky, we had our painters overalls on, a tip given to us by The Guru, and we had filled our bellies with as much free lucozade as humanly possible.

My game plan for this 26.2 mile run was to start off nice and slow, 11min/miles, in order to be able to last the course. I also figured that in order to relieve some of the boredom of running I could take photos en-route and send out to all my faithful followers.

 

As I'm sure you can imagine, it was certainly quite a challenge to run, take these photos and tweet them all at the same time but I managed it and it certainly helped me to keep a good pace and not get bored. When tweeting and taking photos my pace definitely dropped but then I was able to focus and get back on time again. The only problem came when I started to get a little tired and somehow managed to switch my camera to take photos with a blue tint! This was around the 13 mile mark just before I had a beer with a school colleague at the water station.

After the first half of the marathon everything still seemed fine but by 20 miles I had the first twinges of cramp in one of my legs. My running mantra of "Be strong, Be bold" helped me through this and I carried on running albeit slightly slower now. This pattern continued and my pace was steadily decreasing, I hadn't done enough training! Thankfully I was determined not to stop and continued on regardless of the cramp, which kept coming and going like the wind.

 

The last few miles are a bit of a blur, I remember just wanting to finish and looking at my watch to see exactly how far I had run. I remember wishing that I had trained harder and I remember thinking I wanted another beer. The battery on my phone was close to dying and although I had another one to hand I didn't want to waste any time swapping them over... I really just wanted to finish the race.

Before too long though it was all over, I had missed my photo opportunities with Big Ben and the Houses of Parliament but I did not mind. It was over and I had one more marathon under my belt.

So...what is next. The Old Hand has informed me that Mersea has a half marathon on the cards and The Guru has signed up to Luton marathon. 

I may have to do both!

The Wannabe

I feel like a fat Rocky

Considering the title of this piece it would therefore mean that my daughter, Rosy, would have to be the character Mickey played by Burgess Meredith. Let me explain... being the school holidays I have been at home with Rosy doing various activities but yesterday we decided to go for a short bike ride as it was sunny. As it was only 5 miles it really wasn't too much of a big deal for this 2012 challenge but upon looking at the data I decided that it was more than likely possible for the next time we venture out that I run it while Rosy cycles. Upon waking up and seeing the sun shining I knew this was the day to trial it, I still need to run but they only need to be for about an hour as I'm tapering down in readyness for the London Marathon that "The Old Hand" and I are doing. Unfortunately Rosy didn't surface till about 11am, she must be tired, so after some lunch we headed out.

Now then, the fans of the Rocky films out there will understand this next bit. Whilst running through the country roads of Halstead with Rosy cycling alongside me I suddenly remembered the scene from Rocky where Sylvester Stalone was in training for the big fight and Burgess Meredith was cycling alongside him shouting various choice words of encouragement. Unfortunately for me though, there were plenty of times when I had to call Rosy back because I just couldn't keep up with her and that is where the title of this blog post comes from.

In all honesty this blog post is just a big excuse to see if I can embed a 3D 'fly-by' of our route. If it works it'll be below... if it doesn't... it won't be below, or anywhere else for that matter.

Lots of love

Wannabe

Fighting Talk

Now, I'm not talking about the banter between myself and "The Guru" as that is banter, pure and simple. I'm talking about some sort of mantra that can keep a guy like me going through 26.2 miles of road running in just under 2 weeks time.

There's a well know saying that goes something like,

"If you think you're beaten, you are,
If you think you dare not, you don't,
If you like to win but you think you can't, It's almost sure you won't,
If you think you'll lose, you've lost.
Success begins with a fellow's will,
It's all in the state of the mind."

From what I understand there have been studies on the usefulness of mantras and they say that positive self-talk can reduce anxiety, increase effort and boost self-confidence. This is something that I have always believed. If you think you are a lucky person your subconscious mind is automatically more attentive and observant whereas if you think you are unlucky you invariably wont notice that £10 note laying on the pavement as you walk past it. From memory it's also got something to do with the reticular motor in your brain which regulates how much you take in of what you see through your eyes. I digress though, basically there is lots of evidence showing that what we say to ourselves can influence what we say to ourselves can influence how we feel and how we perform (Runners World).

I can't just copy other people's mantras, like "This is what you came for, you're in command" as it needs to be meaningful, relevant and specific to my needs. It needs to be positive, short, energetic and to embed some sort of instructions. As the people of Runners World say, I've got to build it, believe it and become it.

Being less than 2 weeks to the marathon now I'm focusing my mind more towards the race day and the actual race. I'm getting my kit together, thinking about meals and visualising running through those mileage points that I know are going to be difficult. I haven't thought of my mantra yet, but on the back of the first London Marathon I earned it says "It's not the taking part that counts, it's the finishing" and I can't wait to see what this one will say.

The Wannabe.

Now counting down in days

For "The Old Hand" and myself the day is getting closer, the day is in sight, the day is fast becoming a reality rather than a dream. The day is Sunday the 22nd April 2012, the day is known as the Virgin London Marathon 2012.

As I'm sure you know, we were both lucky enough to get in and found this out six months ago way back in October. It was unfortunate that "The Guru" was refused entry but on a more positive side it has meant that the rest of us have been able to use this as a source of motivation to keep running and gradually gain points in this little competition of ours.

It has to be said that I am really looking forward to the marathon. There was a time when I was thinking that there was no way I would be able to do it in a time I would be happy with, mainly due to my lazy arse attitude to training, but thanks to this "2012 in 2012" challenge things are slightly back on track and I'm happy again. Optimistically I'm still wanting to get as close to 4hrs30 as possible but I know how much I slow down by after the 13 mile mark so my actual time is more likely to be closer to 5hrs. Still, I'm happy with that as I know that if I continue with the training, and train slightly more than I am at the moment, then it will get better and next year my time will be 4hrs30.

Now then, the day is in sight and no longer am I saying the marathon is in a month or two...

the marathon is in 19 days!

Half Marathon Day Tomorrow

For myself and The Guru, tomorrow is a race day. A day when we are both going to be running an organised half marathon. For The Guru the day will start at 7.30am when he'll leave Chelmsford for a 11.00am start at Silverstone. I will be starting at 9.00am from the Colchester United football ground and considering I have run a half marathon every weekend for the last three weekends, I am feeling a little nervous.

Still, it should be fun and I look forward to seeing what time The Guru clocks in at. Myself, I'm hoping for 2hrs9mins.