The 30 day challenge - Day 19. Steve Way.

A short post this afternoon given what I have to get on with study wise for the rest of the afternoon and evening. Was wondering what to write about and was reminded of a gentleman I spoke to Simon Freeman about when we caught up last week. As ever when he and I get together, we try to fit about 10 conversations into 1, cover our respective running, how our girlfriends are keeping and what daft plans we've both got next.

I'd spotted that Steve Way, another running blogger, had been putting up his training stats 'for a big race' he had upcoming and I asked Simon whether this was Amsterdam. It wasn't, for Steve had the IAU World 50Km Trophy to run in Italy. Simon reminded me that my own club mate and former blog interviewee, Paul Martelletti was running it as well.

For those who don't  know who Steve is, he explains well on his blog of his former life, overweight, a smoker and fond of a drink or two and now runs sub 2:20 marathons. I've never met Steve personally, but he did pass me at the Bristol half marathon last month, as he looked very comfortable near the front of the pack and I was en route to a satisfying, albeit slightly painful PB. Whenever I've read his tweets or blog posts, I've always been impressed. Simon vouched for his all round cheerful and friendly persona - he was talked about when Simon and I were saying how much we preferred positive, encouraging runners - so I looked forward to his result this Sunday with interest.

And I was pleased to see that he went and won the damn race! I recommend you read his account. So today - I salute Mr Way (and congratulate Mr Martelletti for an impressive 3rd place as well), and will spend the rest of this afternoon on a hard tempo session, admittedly of speed reading and revising!

As ever, I try and fulfil some sport psych/coaching advice in each post I leave you with. I read through the comments on Steve's 'About' page, and pleasingly found some sound advice that I thought neatly encapsulated his determination and hope it inspires any of the athletes reading this in those moments when you think about skipping a training session:

"the truth is I do still treat myself every now and then. When I’m not in the key 3-4 month build up phase before a target marathon I don’t worry too much about my diet, have the odd drink (although to be honest not really a drinker these days anyway) and I even treat myself to the odd cigar (monthly poker night!)
I find it quite easy to then “knuckle down” in the key phase before my target marathon because all thoughts are on getting the best out of myself for the big day.
The one thing I do all year round though is not have any “Can’t not be arsed” moments with my training, doesn’t matter how much I don’t feel like going for a run I always try and remember how depressed I get when I can’t run due to injury which normally gets me out the door. I also remind myself how good I feel when the miles are in the bag and the session is done.  "

Hope you have a good rest of today, whatever you're doing and push yourself that little bit further if you need an extra lift.

S

ps. I know I'm a few days behind. Give me the chance to catch up will ya? ;-)