Mike Tattam – Running Man, March (less than a month to go)

Firstly I’d like to thank all the donors for their kind support last month: My friends from the R&PWCGS, Keith Probyn, Lakes Bathrooms, Beth Cameron, Marilyn Graham, Sean Rice from Grahams, David Tattam, Haj Mahal from Mucklow Hill Interiors, Simon Lawson of Lawsons, Ian Wilson, Mark and Maggie Mulvey and Mick Evans from Lakes Bathrooms.

Current total £3,864.17

Haile Gebrselassie once said ‘When you run the marathon, you run against the distance, not against the other runners and not against the time’ but he neglected to talk about the weather!

What a month March has been….I’ve been running a half marathon distance every weekend (13 miles) and one  weekend reaching 20 miles, plus shorter runs during the week, giving a total distance of 88.06 miles. Running in early March was a struggle due to the weather and the mini beast from the east returning with sub-zero temperatures but when you’re focused it doesn’t seem to matter, you smile, put on the layers and carry on. In fact a lot of my training has been in very cold weather – I hope it’s not too warm on the day as I’m not sure how my body will cope with warmth!

So back to the injuries….well thankfully they went! I have seen the magician Dr Rod Jaques and Matt Sherrington (the running specialist physio) who have both given me the all clear, and as instructed by Dr Rod, I’ve been ‘planking’ my back every day and feel stronger and fitter.

Running long distances on your own is hard, very hard but you quickly find things to distract your mind from the boredom of running. You pick up on things such as how to avoid cars that despite you wearing fluorescent yellow clothes seem not to see you until the last moment, listening for dogs coming up behind you who want to play (or eat you) and the runner who passes you at 15.8 miles with a cheery ‘hello’ and all you come out with is ‘done 15 miles and 1 to go’ as some sort of excuse.

With the longer runs you also learn what you can eat and drink during the run…..I discovered that Pinot and Ham sandwiches don’t work, nor do Jelly Babies, or Jelly Beans. Surprisingly cubes of raw jelly are fine with flat full fat Coke and Jaffa cakes which are generally consumed at 7 mile intervals. My long suffering wife has met me on several occasions bring me water during my long training runs.

I now have under 20 days to the Virgin London 2018 Marathon and I’m excited… my running vest has arrived (see above!) – I’m number 36,865 and I’m starting from the ‘Red Start’. The Marathon instructions are on my desk and I’ve only got a couple of more longish runs to do before I reduce my mileage with 10 days to go. I have a number of supporters coming to see how I do and there is a link that you can follow on the day to see how I’m doing. Unfortunately that link is not available yet so I can’t put it in my blog, but I’m sure you can find it if you look.

This all started at the All Industry Conference in Budapest last June in a conversation with Simon Lawson, a conversation I’ll never regret and that has given me some great memories all ready. So the questions that should now be asked are – am I ready, Yes. Am I excited, Yes. Will I be glad when it’s over, Yes. Will I do it again, No. Will I beat 5hrs? Well we’ll have to wait and see because it’s not about the time it’s really about the distance or is it????

www.justgiving.com/fundraising/mike-tattam

Kind regards

Mike Tattam

Sales & Marketing Director Lakes Bathrooms