So the boys are home. All they do is sleep for 4 hours, feed for 40 mins then repeat. Paternity has been enjoyable and our daily activity is a walk to the bakery for lunch as a family of four to give Alex and I a break from the box sets for an hour and the twins routine.
I was lucky enough to be allowed to take some time out and run a double marathon Saturday/Sunday back with Phoenix Running again. Checking their website I quickly realised that if 100 marathons was to be the goal then as this outfit was so local they would most likely play a rather large role in my quest.
The double went so smoothly as I had learnt my lesson from my previous marathon at Phoenix.
Day 1 was a four lap course and Day 2 was the 8 lap route which I died on a few weeks prior.
This was a great experience. A weekend spent with the same runners and everybody pushing each other along over the two days. One chap I enjoyed talking to was a recent Tough Mudder finisher. He had never run a marathon and here he was taking on two in two days. When asking him what was tougher he laughed. It turned out 52 miles of running to him was insanely tougher than the tough mudder. His sole focus was the massive medal. R-E-S-P-E-C-T to him he managed it.
I was starting to recognise faces I had seen before over the last few months of ramping up the races. Looks like I am not alone at this quest for 100 marathons.
At Phoenix and all the other lapped events I have done the friendliness and support of the other runners is well up there and to me is a big selling point of these things. Not happy with the lack of praise from work/home life? Come here, you get a “well done” literally every 10 minutes for the duration of the run!!!
Tips
Multiple days means slow it down a bit. The legs don’t thank you for bashing out fast marathon times on a daily basis.
Lower you expectations if you’re going for times.
