Take heed...! Be careful with your preparation!

Dr Iain Chalmers, our resident doctor, offers further advice:

I see from the blog below Rory Coleman is off to the desert. I have to say though that any event where the entry price includes the cost of repatriating your body in the case of death seems a tad silly. However I would say my fellow GP’s locally and most of my triathlete mates think I’m mildly barking undertaking the Project 65 running challenge. This even includes one who has swum with a stress fracture in his foot - he found duck tape and plastic bags which rendered his plaster totally impervious to water.

Still, give him his due though and I have sent an encouraging e-mail to the Sahara. It is true though in any distance event you always have a bad moment. I heard a story about Paula Radcliffe in London one year - she was banging out the miles at 5:20 min per mile pace and her bad moment meant it dropped to a 5:40 pace! That’s when friends count double A-plus and any encouragement lifts you!

The nutritional advice is coming in thick and fast and all good it is too. The bottom line is 'Prior Planning& Preparation Prevents Piss Poor Performance', by that I mean practice your regime and stick to it, especially if you have a fancy for rice pudding! Don’t try “freebies” on or near the day and remember this time its not a race and 'second isn’t the first loser' as you'll have done 65 miles and can happily say you have 'one less thing to do in life'!!

If you don’t believe me I mucked about once and once only at Sheffield half-marathon. I did it 2 years running: one year proper preparation, carbo load, Vaseline etc and came home in 1h 42m and fine. The next year, 6 pints of Guinness and a BBQ the night before, no warm up, forgot half my kit. God, I felt dreadful from about mile 8, finished in complete pieces in 1h 44m and it took days to recover!!

Finally as we are all now doing prodigious volumes of training, some extra tips include using creatine (plus lots of water), ZMA powder for night-time to help sleep (important in its own right), build testosterone levels and aid muscle recovery and dropping caffeine from the diet but saving it for the race. Note some of the “gels” and “ride shots” used by cyclists include it in the mix so it may help later in long runs. If your want more information regarding this please contact me via the contact email on this blog.

Lastly we all got a nice load of information today from Project 65 about some local Lincolnshire chaps who are flying down; the Battle of Britain Memorial Flight. If I see the Hurricane then that’s the set as I will have seen them all. If you’ve never seen them close up they are truly amazing. The Lancaster flew low over our house 3 years ago following a display at North Thoresby and was truly impressive.

I feel a fund raising opportunity coming on and maybe I could try and blag a flight down...

Till next week - best wishes to you all!