Week 1 Slowly Does It

I have a tiny weeny confession to make! I started training in November last year hoping that I could achieve a 10K run before Christmas Day. If I couldn't get to this milestone, I knew it would be highly unlikely that I would be able to take on a Marathon by 26th April.

I'm pleased to say I just about achieved this and on 24th December, yes Christmas Eve, I ran my first 10K in 71 minutes. The time doesn't matter, as everyone tells me. What mattered to me was the fact that I didn't have to stop two or three times to get my breath. 

You see what the Youtube vids and Instagram posts don't tell you before you start is that if you don't know how to breathe properly you collapse, even more so at my age. 

I thought I was having either heart or panic attacks Or Both! I've since discovered I was Hyperventilating and gulping in way to much oxygen and exhaling too much CO2 then gulping too much oxygen again. Turns out you need to retain a certain amount of CO2 to cause a chemical reaction that gets the oxygen out of your blood and into your muscles. What clever bodies we have!

Anyway, I'm now on week 1 of my 10 to 42 kilometer journey to complete my Marathon. I have just 16 weeks to get to the start line in one piece and have any hope of finishing.

With the help of a fantastic local physio, John Moore, I've recovered from a hamstring injury that literally popped out of nowhere during my warm down from an "Easy" 5k run. I can assure you that no such thing exists, well not in my current world.

So I'm truly on my way, time is of the essence!

Here's my program for week1, commencing 5th January 2026. 

Following my first session with John Moore, my hamstring full mended, I set out on my so called easy run on Tuesday morning. Only four minor interruptions on this "easy" task, 2 breathing stops, one tiptoeing delay caused by sheet ice (yes it was -1C) and a local farmer was towing a trailer of slurry along the very narrow lane I was running in. I really didn't want a close encounter of the cow excrement type!

It's now Thursday 8th January and I've just returned, soaked, from the gym. I've learned that at my age you don't run to get fit, you get fit to run! So I've got to lose fat and build muscle. But not just any old muscle, its got to be the right muscle in the right places!

Storm Goretti has just hit the Scilly Islands and it's about 2 hours away from hitting the area I live in in the South Hams of Devon. Baton down the hatches coz it's gonna be a rough ride for the next 24 hours!

Ordinarily, in my non running days this wouldn't bother me as I'm a bit of a fair weather golfer and usually only sing indoors during the winter months. But now I'm a Marathon Runner in training with a Physio, gym membership, a Runna program, a Garmin Forerunner 265 smartwatch, and my taking part has been announced to all my mates! the weather and my ability to run outside is pretty fundamental to my life!

The response by the guys of The Kingsmen has been fantastic and really supportive and gives equal measure of support and added pressure because I don't want to let them down.

Thursday. A gym session. Legs, arms, tummy and bum muscles. Tough especially when you're embarrassingly struggling with weights that are half the level of those young guns alongside you. Keep to the programme, don't compete!

My tempo run was scheduled for Friday. My legs were tighter than a marcher's drum. Hamstrings and calves. Okay, so let's do an extended warm up and stretch before going out in the aftermath of Storm Goretti which had just ripped through the Scilly Isles and Cornwall leaving carnage in its wake and also put a big dent into Devon. 

Tree debris was everywhere along the lane bordering Bowcombe estuary. There were a few runners out which gave me a level of reassurance that I wasn't completely mad. 

Started slowly, nice steady pace, breathing, cadence (you learn about cadence when you start running, never heard of it before) all good. 

Got to 3.5k and my hamstrings started complaining and after 4k they decided that enough was enough! Shame coz everything else was going as well as I could hope for. Sensibly, I stopped and walked back to the car. Demoralised but no major harm done.  The slow walk of shame :-(  back to the car seemed to last forever, especially when I was passed by other runners bouncing along giving very bright greetings of the day. I smiled when responding but inside I was fearing that I'd just caused anther injury delay to my limited programme schedule.

Friday was recovery day. Apart from a walk around Kingsbridge doing nada was the order of the day.

Saturday, what a great day for running! But not for me. Taking it easy and playing 9 holes at the glorious Thurlestone Golf Club with my wife Liz. 

I'm just keeping everything crossed so that I can get that all important long run in on Sunday through the rolling hills of Devon!

Here's my JustGiving page or link to https://www.justgiving.com/page/kingsmen-jim

All donations will go to directly to Prostate Cancer UK Research Charity. 

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