Edinburgh 2005 Marathon

[Bob Jefferson]

The Edinburgh 2005 Marathon on Sunday 12 June will be televised for the first time this year. The route passes through Portobello as follows:

Seafield Road East, Portobello Promenade, Joppa Road, Abercorn Terrace, Portobello High Street, Brighton Place, Southfield Place, Duddingston Road

Marya's hubby has been making some vague threats of taking part and I'm sure we would all happily sponsor him and be there to cheer him on. So how about it?

[ecm]

[wangi]

[Maria]

[Bob Jefferson]

[Homer]

Thanks Bob. You've forced me to finally register. I suppose something good can come from the evils of drink. I'm not even registered to run the marathon yet, but I'll get on the case. Charity to be decided. Training run
over the Pentlands in 2 weeks time Bob ?

[foxy]

[ecm]

So, you would be the Homer what lives in Edinburgh then?






Pleased to meet you.

[foxy]

Great picture ecm

[Homer]

No, I meant Homer as in 'The Illiad' and 'The Odyssey'. Who's this other Homer ?

[ecm]

[Maria]

[Jamesie]

[Porty]

[ecm]

[Porty]

[foxy]

[Bob Jefferson]

[Porty]

[ecm]

[Maria]

[Lizzie]

[Maria]

[bellybabe]

Wow...been too busy to look in here for a few days and am completely and utterly stunned that the last stalwart of the anti-POL brigade has fallen!!!

Welcome, Homer...nice to have you join us at last. See- all it took was a little time off work for you to fall into temptation!

Next you'll be making me cups of tea of a morning.
BB

[Maria]

[Bob Jefferson]

So how's the training going Homer? And what happened to our relay team? Still up for it Porty?

[Maria]

He's just returned from a training run up Arthur's Seat Bob where he found, at the top of the Duddingston steps, a 36 year old bloke who had slashed his wrists in an attempt to commit suicide. Needless to say he's feeling a bit shaky..........

[foxy]

That's awful Marya...poor guy.

A very troubling experience for Homer too

[Maria]

[ecm]

Poor guy and poor Homer. What a distressing thing to happen.

Hopefully, the guy will get the proper care and attention he needs now but I fear there are many incidents like this.

Ali and I heard of another suicide, a successful one in this case, that happened recently on a busy Edinburgh street in the early evening.
Like the guy that Homer helped, this person also had a history of mental illness.

It's all very sad.

[Maria]

[Ed]

To the experts out there. How much lead time do you need to train for the marathon? I am "reasonably" fit, any advice as I am thinking of doing it before I officially retire from exercise this year (for good)...

[Homer]

I'll term myself an 'expert' for this Ed...It depends what you mean by reasonably fit. What's the furthest you can run at any pace without stopping ? The key to marathon training is to be able to run quite a few training runs that approach the distance, which can take a while to build up to if you're starting from a lower base.

[Ed]

Play rugby regulaly so I can run as far as I do in a game. I would hope I could manage a few miles, maybe 5 before I collapsed? Who knows

[Homer]

Well, I'd have said that to get ready for a May marathon you'd want to be capable of running 10 miles just now and to build up each week from that, to be running nearly 20 by the beginning of May. I don't think they'd say this in the training manauals though - they tend to be more conservative. If you're young, light and resistant to injury then you can increase the training more rapidly. I'm none of these three as I'm finding out when running this year !