The half to the whole

With the Ealing Half Marathon under my belt, I feel confident about the 26.2 mile run in Brighton. The Ealing Half was such good fun, with tremendous local support and a jaunt through quaint, somewhat rural bits of London like Perivale Park that I never quite realised were there. I ran the half at an arguably safe pace in light of the fact that it was much hotter than anyone could have hoped for but it's fun to look at the GPS data and see that the sign near the 2-mile mark before Aston Road warning of zombies behind me and safety ahead well and truly gave me a boost.

Having run the half and been quoted as uttering "I could do that again", I concede that I am aware that running a full marathon is not just a matter of adding a multiplier. The inevitable, infamous "wall" when your body is depleted of stored energy, for one, is an obstacle to prepare for, both physically and mentally. I do think the fact that I regularly consume as much as a bear going into hibernation is a good start. I've had the vague objective of hitting an average pace of 9 minute miles since I started running. I currently sit at about 10 minutes on long runs. I have been advised that focusing on the distance itself rather than time should be my motivation as a first timer so the pacing is more of a long term goal. My username holds no relation to pacing, but rather an obscure sci-fi reference and nod to a comment my sister made one night playing Rock Band. The fact that I can now use it as a drive to live up to my own name, as a runner as well as a nerd, is all the better.

Brighton Marathon 2015

I will officially be running the Brighton Marathon for Coeliac UK in 2015! A cause quite obviously dear to me, I will be raising funds to help Coeliac UK conduct research into this auto-immune disease and raise awareness in the community, food manufacturing industry, grocery stores, and commercial kitchens across the UK. In the two years since my diagnosis, I have seen impressive and reassuring developments in the manufacturing industry, with better labelling amd availability in shops but I do think there is room for improvement in the way of awareness in commercial kitchens and restaurants, which is part of what Coealiac UK strive to do.

Running the Brighton Marathon by the sea will be a great challenge. It will be nice to have a fonder memory of Brighton than the time a seagull knicked my ice cream; a right ninja it was, but I'd let my guard down. Brighton also has a wealth of gluten-free restaurants I am eager to try, and having recently watched Nick Cave's biopic 20,000 Days on Earth, in which Brighton features prominently, I have a comforting, albeit unconventional, soundtrack for the broadening training regime. On the calmer front, more gluten-free baking is on the horizon for fundraising ventures. If you'd like to donate, please do click through; you have my thanks in the form of words, sentiment and gluten-free baking samples if you so choose - provided you're within commuting distance of London, or Montreal over Christmas!