We Did it!

Thanks for all the support and charity money my fine friends.

Last Sunday Ant and I completed the London marathon and we have the medals to prove it.

It was a bit of a dodgy day for me as my leg infection flared and I felt like I had no energy left to give from about 6 miles in (Only 20 to go) but I finally stumbled across the line in just under 6 hours. Mr Groves aced it in 4 and a half hours. We both had a lovely beer to celebrate. Just one mind, let's not go crazy.

Thanks to everyone who supported us. Most thanks to Becky and Thea for suffering our training regimes for the past four months, being very patient and a great support. A massive thanks to everyone who came and supported on the day including Thea and Becky, Ants folks, uncle and and Aunt, the library crew - Kieron, Beth, Adam, Sian and Dan and Caroline along with Elizabeth all the way from the USA and Dan and Debra. Without you guys I'm not sure I would have got round, thanks for cheering us on. Thanks to Nicola for the amazing card, Holly for the fantastic multi-coloured banner and everybody else who sent messages of good luck to us both or sponsored us too.

The just giving page will remain open for a while so there's still time to get your cash in.

Some photos to follow.

Marathon done; never again!

Flucloxacillin (I'm on pills for me nerves)

Born to Run (Check out the thighs and the socks)

This week has been a funny one. I got a leg infection on Monday and immediately thought "I'm not pulling out of the marathon now I can tell thee!". Thankfully it doesn't look too serious and after 3 days on anti-biotics I'm feeling much better and raring to go. Well almost raring, I wouldn't quite exclaim that much enthusiasm. Pre-raring lets say.





However I did go to the Marathon Expo yesterday and collected my running number and race chip. They were playing the marathon music as you went in, which always makes me feel a little emotional. Sadly Mr Groves and I could arrange a time to go around together but he's going today. Oh Jesus, there's no turning back now! Let's hope I finish somewhere near Sir Steve Redgraves time of 4 hours 21 minutes. I'm sure as hell am going to complete it quicker than Katie Prices time of 7 hours 11 minutes or I'm going to demand a recount.





Two days to go, leg infection beat, loads of rest coming, plent O Carbs and a small question of 26.1 miles.

Brighton Marathon

I watched some of the Brighton Marathon this weekend. I thought, "I've got to do that next week. Bugger!"

Almost there - Over £1000 raised

Ant and I completed our last long training run before the London Marathon in two weeks time this Sunday and boy it was a hot one! I was melting under the heat but got through by listening the Liza Tarbuck and Adam Buxton iterviewing Paul Merton.

To my massive relief the next two weeks will include plenty of rest and a tiny strole here and there whilst my body recovers for the big one.

The Hornblowers charity event raised £200.04 for Scope, well done guys. Thanks very much to all the members of Curly Hair and Flash Bang Band for performing too. This takes the current total for moneys raised so far to well over £1000. A huge thanks to everyone who has donated so far.

There's still time to come on down to our second charity event this Friday. My group, A Fish Called Improv, are putting on their first solo show! Hope to see you down there.

This week training: minimal - Sweet Times!

20 MILES! AND Fundraising Events

Hope everyone had a lovely Easter. My Easter Sunday consisted of 4 hours running a huge amount of lovely rest.

So the big 20 miler is now under our belts. Hurrah for that. We did it and, for all the horror of facing the wall the week before, it wasn't that bad. Yeah the knees are just a tiny amount done in, yeah, bits have been rubbed sore I would have particularly chosen to be rubbed quite so vigorously over a four hour period and yeah after 3 months of no alcohol I'm feeling like I need a large glass of white wine and if I'd known giving up would just make me eat more to compensate would I have bothered? AND I haven't lost weight (I just loves the cake!) BUT it's done, the pinnacle of training has been reached and we are now ambling on the side of the taper down. Phew, what a relief.

That still means we've got 17 miles to run this weekend but for the first time the training schedule has said: "It is now important to stuff your face with chips and relax. No good will come for any other form of exertion other than running a little bit. In fact why not have some cake?" or it said something like that. I think I'm para-phrasing.

Mr Groves and I are now starting to feel excited about the actual day, soon enough we will be attending the Marathon Expo and getting our numbers.

We've got some fund raising events coming up: Ant's Band The Hornblower Brothers are playing at the Latest music bar this Sunday (11th April) and my improv comedy group A Fish Called Improv are putting on a show on Friday 16th April at the Sanctuary Cella in Hove.

If you get a chance please come down to have fun and help us raise some cash.

Simon T

Meet the Wall

I hit the wall this week. I say “hit” the wall but what I actually mean is that I gradually staggered into said wall and pressed my body tightly against it whilst slowly inching my way to the floor silently crying for mercy.

Fifteen miles into my second eighteen mile run in preparation for this London marathon, that haunts me so, I had the compulsion to walk. It must be the first time I’ve ever stopped to walk on a run, when not injured, it just hurt too much, and with that, my mind (damn that grey matter) gave in. Thankfully my defeated spirit cheered a little five minutes later and I rallied myself to carry on and finish the jog at a beleaguered pace.

So there you have it. This week the wall has truely been met and greeted with hopefully no permanent damage done.

On a lighter note Mr Groves is back pretty much into full training and managed to complete sixteen miles, a big well done is in order.

This week I’m resting most of it in readiness for the pinnacle of our training when Ant and I go out for the 20 miler on Easter Sunday.

Sweet times. Less than a month to go!

Topping

Tired now

Me and me big sister, Sarah. (Im the miserable one)






You know things are getting serious when you don’t even have the energy to write a blog about how tired you have become. Due to this lack of energy it would appear I have become as interesting to spend time with as taking a guided tour around a concrete block. A concrete block of uniform size, colour and shape you understand. A concrete block with no distinguishing features. Not an interesting concrete block…. Oh god, I’m even inanely rambling in blog life as well as real life. I’ll stop.


A quick report:

Last Sunday I ran 18 miles, poor Mr Groves still has tendonitis, so I ran the miles alone. It took me an absolutely age. (running through the Heroic and Bronze ages if anyone’s interested).


Having just moved house the day before didn’t help, although, as anyone who is friends with me knows I love the simplicity of shifting “stuff” and I don’t have too many things to move with anyway. However, I did have to grapple with the worlds’ heaviest mini-piano (A truly apt name for it when describing the size of the piano but sadly the same is to be not to be said of the weight of this particular keyboard). I believe comparatively it is as dense as the sun so thanks to everybody who helped me move it.

This week I also ran with music in my ears, well radio four in my ears that is. This had a fantastically hypnotic effect on me and as a result I didn’t feel quite so awful at the end of the run as I normally would do. I did feel, however, a bit dazed with a nagging thought that I might just have been running the whole distance like a chicken or in the style of Winston Churchill leaping over cigar boxes. Curse you radio four! Of course, as a side note, the cold bath was a treat.

This week Ant is trying a special fancy knee support like top tennis star Raffa Nadal uses (oo, Posh). Hopefully this will help considerably to instigate a speedy recovery and lead him on to a 4 sets win against Andy Murray in this years Wimbledon final.

I’ve had me first sports massage. Far less painful than I was expecting but then my muscles do have a fine layer of fat to protect them.

This week holds a 7 mile run on Thursday and another 18 miler on Sunday.

This weeks mantra: Touch my bum, this is life.

Si

Serpico, the running man.

My running beard is now of great quality akin to, and some say(well I do) superior to, the non-running beard of 70's undercover hardcase cop, Serpico. I've got the look down. (Photos to follow over the coming weeks).

Besides that the running was a little slow this week. I was hit by a heavy cold (sniffles galore) on Wednesday night so missed Thursday and Saturday training and deferred to sleeping and over eating to compensate the loss. Was that wrong? I did, however, venture out with Mr Groves for 'The Big One' on Sunday.

Sixteen miles was furthest either me or Ant had ever run and it didn't really go that well. Ant hit a agonising wall of knee pain just over halfway through and now has to consult the physio and I plodded my slow plod to complete the course in just over 3 hours! The tank was definatley empty. Ah, here begins our life for the next six weeks. It will involve alot of pain and alot of miles, oh dear.

Interestingly I had my first cold bath after the run to repair my aching bones. I sat in my self-imposed freezing tub supping a coffee feeling both highly exhillerated and mildly depressed. Having bathed for 10 minutes I do think the cold had some recouperative power as today my joints are only mildly aching and I'm actually ready for more. My brain forgets quickly.

This week: Gym, spin, 7 miles and a half marathon.

This weeks mantra: A cold bath is a happy bath.

Till later.

Si x

Half way

Halfway through now and to be honest I’m feeling pretty good. I did the Sussex Beacon half marathon last week and despite the mind numbingly boring route, driving rain and pile up at the finish line I completed it in 2 hours 6 minutes and actually felt okay when I finished it.

You can see a couple of pictures of me doing the race at:

http://www.sportcam.net/

Just search for Sussex Beacon half marathon 2010, and surname search Topping but I’ll be damned if I’m paying £12 to download it!

There are more photos on the wonderful 42 run web page. (As Above) http://42run.com/

Here is where the hard work starts. We’ve got runs of 14, 16 and 18 miles coming up over the next four weeks and a 20 miler on Easter Sunday, of all times. I rather be attempting to get through a large mountain of Easter eggs instead of the miles but there you go.

8 weeks training complete.
0ver 20 miles run this week.
One slightly ailing back.
One sports massage to come.

Sweet!

New Shoes. Run fat boy, run!

Great times.

This week, I too, have got my brand-spanking new marathon stompers. They are brilliantly shiny, smell the marvelous smell of a factory fresh slippers and are armed with wonderful and silly named padding and endurance enhancing based technology.

However, none of this can distract from the fact, although I hoped it would, that they have exactly the same purpose as the old trainers; i.e they in some small way, some small yet important way, cushion the impact of my heavy frame as I clock up the miles.

Unfortuitously it is my over sized pie stomach and thunder thighs that still remain the problem now me and Mr Groves are beginning to clock up the miles. My back hasn't stopped feeling "tight" over the past two weeks as it groans to cope with the over hang the other side. To remedy this, as I don't believe moaning has much of a positive physiological effect (although I may be wrong) I plan to restart Tai Chi and practise it at least every other day and redouble my attempts to shed the pounds. No sneaky sandwiches or chocolate bars for me. I may also book in for my first ever sports massage, although this does somewhat fills me with dread. It is yet to be tested to see if I liked to be touched in a firm and sporty yet massagey type of way.

Partly nothing can be done to help my bulk. I am who I am and I of course blame genetics. My mother, in her youth, although standing no more than five feet tall, had the nickname Teresa Tree Trunk Legs so what can I do? Although it has to be said I don't think her weight ever ventured much above 8 stone. Ah, there is something to be said for moderation then, after all.

Maxim of the day - Do it, fool! (Mr T)

This weeks mileage to come - 5 on Tursday - 3 on Saturday - 12 on Sunday

Lets get ready to rumble! (PJ and Duncan)

My name is Antony, I spent £80 on a new pair of trainers and socks

Ok, so two and a bit weeks in and my first entry on the blog...
I'll keep this mercifully short because I'm not as funny as Simon.
It's ok, I can live with this. He has to live with looking like a sausage.
I've run about 48 miles, swum about 4 miles, and up to now, so far so good.
Did that sentence really need three commas?
Sorry, back to the point - the Sunday morning runs have been a little early for my liking but apart from that things seem ok.
On the negative side the furthest we've run has been 8 miles in one go. We need to do more than three times that on the day. Balls.
Or as we say in running circles, balls.

Antony

I forgot my shorts

This week has been a bit of dodgy one.

Monday I had an epileptic fit in my tiny bathroom. It's always a little surreal when I come round to see where I am, what postion I am in and which part of my body hurts. This time my elbow and shoulder were particularly pushing out the pain and I happened to wake up in a kind of Jarvis Cocker dance pose circa his Pulp "common people" era. Saddly I didn't wake up any thinner, taller or with sharp suit suit fitted. Thankfully I did wake up and with no serious injury with everything, for what it's worth, ha ha, in tact.

From that low point I managed to push through Tuesdays gym session, rather slowly, and ably coped with Wednesdays Spin class by not dying. For those of you who are unaware of what a spin class is let me explain. Basically it's a 45 - 50 minute work out to unpredictably cheery music on a static bicylce which has various levels of pedal tension to make you feel like, at points, your either cycling up hill and then maybe down hill and then again on the flat. The class is, like most organised gym based activity, run by sadists and attended by masochists. It's a reciprocal agreement.

Thursdays run home was the high point. Having adorned my suitably impressive new running gear, as previously decribed in my last post, I realised I had forgot my shorts to place over the tights! In the spirit of "The show must go on" and hoping no one would point at my awful Henry 8th legs (That's the old "Place me in some wide shaped armour" Henry 8th not the youthful joust winning, ladies favourite, Henry 8th) or be horrified by other less "fixed" parts of the body moving beneath the tighted area moving to the slow plod of my running pace as I shuffle slowly down the very busy and well lit London road. I progressed tentively. A man feels bare running in tights alone. I was wishing I could bedeck myself with codpiece and full Elizabethean attire because as least that way I'd look stylish. Alas I only had my figure hugging fluorescent running jacket to hand. However that did seem to detract attention from the lower half of my body, thank the lord! Next time I promise shorts will be worn.

5 more miles done, 5 pounds lost this week, shorts not wore!

.

Little Sausage

When I was but a little chap sitting on the settee eating garlic sausage sandwiches (I know, my family was ahead of their time up north in the 1980's in our free thinking commune, we were radical) and watching the wrestling with Big Daddy and Giant Haystacks of a Saturday afternoon(not that radical it would seem) I was known affectionately by mother under many names. My favourite was little mushroom, but, I was also known as little sausage, and, it was this name that came leaping back to me from the mists of time as Ant and I went out for our first "long" run of our training campaign.

You see, after only 4 years, I, this very weekend, went out and bought some proper running clothing. With the help of a gift voucher given to me by the ViceHolt crew for my birthday (yes I know it was in June!) I managed to buy some running leggings and a long sleeve top. Putting these along with my excellent new running socks (Thanks Ethan and Felix) and jacket (Thanks Emma and Alex) I am now excellently kitted out.

The only trouble with good running gear is apparently it has to be tight fitting. Wedging yourself into it isn't graceful and as I squeezed my stomach and legs into this clothing I couldn't help but think my mums childhood prophecy had come true. I am that sausage shaped human being. I definitely felt like, well lets say, "supported." Or, "trussed up like a good en" is another way of putting it. I was half expecting someone to shout out, "Hey sausage, nice running outfit!" I had to have a little chuckle to myself running around the centre of town. What a sight to behold!

That's one good thing about running, it's a great leveler when it comes to how you look. You can't worry about it. Even Julie Christie in her heyday would have looked like a wet despondent wookie after a seven mile run.


Crammed into tight running gear looking like a little sausage
Sweating like six little sausages in their packaging on a hot summers day
Cold weather. Little sausage? Oh yes.

Seven miles done.

Simon

Simon on: Getting Started

The trouble with me is that I'm too much like two weight boxing world champion Ricky "The Hitman" Hatton.

That's one hell of a grandiose boast to start my first blog with isn't it? What a braggart! But, hang on, let me qualify that. What I should have said is that I have a little too much in common with Ricky Fatton, as the hitman is affectionately known when he's not in training. He is known as that because, alot like me, Hatton is all too ready to hit the pies and bottles of Port when he's not got a training goal to stick to. He likes the good life, as do I. Sadly, unlike Ricky, I'm not a very talented sportsman or particularly known as a pugilist. Those who know me can confirm there is about as much intent in my body or as much actual likelihood of me knocking someone out as there is a chance of a marsh mellow fancy miraculously turning into a chocolate hobnob. That aside, get to the point Topping, what I'm try to say is that I don't exactly do myself any favours when it comes to my weight.

In December you could find me on any cold, lonely street downing pints of wine and stealing mince pies from children and now, due to said nature, I have handsomely acquired the deportment of Oliver Reed, with beard to match.

So here I stand, Oliver Reed, no more pies left and shit out of wine.

Hell, everybody has got to start somewhere.

This week so far, spin class and 4 mile cross training session down, only 14 weeks and 3 days to go. Nice!

Simon T (Keeping Team Troving churning)

Our Just Giving page details

We've set up a Just Giving page for anyone who wants to sponsor Team Troving's effort to do the London Marathon:



http://www.justgiving.com/teamtroving

Thanks alot.

Welcome to our world of pain.

Welcome to you all. Team Troving is born. Here we will relay the woes and joys of training as we punish our bodies and beat ourselves into shape for the 2010 London Marathon. May the fun commence. Ha ha ha ha ha ha!