Teddy Bears All

At the beginning of April, TEAM! lost a member when Jonathan Moore deferred his place to 2014. At such a late stage we thought it was going to be an impossibility to draft in a replacement, but we were wrong - within an hour of hearing the news, Emily's oldest and closest friend had contacted us to offer his services and so TEAM! was immediately back up to full complement! Given his late entry, we wanted to introduce him to you and he kindly agreed to a rare interview, transcribed below, which took place at the Marathon registration in London's ExCel this afternoon.

Arriving At ExCel      -     Trying New Kit    -   Podium Dry Run

TEAM!: Teddy, thank you very much for taking the time to talk with us this afternoon, could you tell us how you knew Emily?

Early years with Emily

Teddy: I first met Emily when Alison and her mum adopted me from the island of St. Michael in 1982. I was drawn to her because at the time she was the same size that I was, but - as you can see in this picture - it was not to last. Even though she became much bigger, we were always inseparable and so when this opportunity to join TEAM! came up, I just had to grab it with both paws.

TEAM!: You have been training now for 2 weeks, could you tell us about your hydration and nutrition?
Teddy: Bears' food needs are different from yours, especially when it comes to endurance sports. Personally, I find that my best performances have come after I have gorged myself on chocolates and tea. In fact the better the chocolate the better the performance and if any one out there wants to witness a bear giving WIlson Kipsang a run for his money, please send a box of Knipschildt La Madeline au Truffe to me, c/o TEAM! - they are rocket fuel.

TEAM!: Amazingly, you started training for the marathon with only 2 weeks to go, what has your average week looked like?

Relaxing in Chocospa™

Teddy: Mondays and Wednesdays are when I work on my endurance, on these days I sit for anything up to 9 hours at a stretch. On Tuesdays and Thursdays I practice sitting in a real pocket and Saturday and Sundays are rest days. Friday is the hardest day, that is when I work on jiggling up and down - I can now manage over 3 hours without bringing any chocolate back up, and I am hoping that by Sunday I may even manage 4 hours. People on the Embankment had better watch out just in case - don't be fooled by my size; I eat a lot of chocolate. 


TEAM!: Mo Farah's and Paula Radcliffe's training takes them to the Rift Valley in Kenya, do you do any of your training at altitude?
Teddy: Indeed, don't forget that on race day I will be competing at nearly 5ft above ground level and it is important for me to replicate these conditions in training. When I am not pounding the streets, I do this by completing my endurance sessions on a high shelf.

Mid-Training Run

TEAM!: If all the training goes to plan, how fast do you think you can run London 2013?
Teddy: That all depends on the chocolate and tea situation. And Alison. But mostly the chocolate and tea.

TEAM!: There's likely to be much media focus and scrutiny of your performance in this race. Does it make you want to prove the critics wrong or do you just ignore it?
Teddy: Who are these critics? Give me their names and addresses.

TEAM!: Er... Moving on, we'll ask a few quick questions about you so people can get to know the real Teddy! Property aside, what's the most expensive thing you've bought? Teddy: A 2009, gold leaf-covered special edition bar of Wispa Gold.

TEAM!: What do you most dislike about your appearance?
Teddy: Do you humans really think like that?

TEAM!: Who would play you in the film of your life?

Teddy: Bear Grylls, but he may not be tall enough.

TEAM!: Who would you invite to your dream dinner party? 

Teddy: Yogi, Baloo, Winnie, Fozzie and Paddington. It would be a picnic - old habits die hard.

We welcome this remarkable bear to TEAM! and wish him the very best of luck.

Ever committed to his training, Teddy went off to complete yet another endurance session in the first of this year's sun. 

34% Done!

I realised that even though I trained for a year to do the marathon in 2007, I didn’t do enough long runs to fully prepare myself, so this time round I've done some research and decided on a training plan following the advice in this book: I looked for a running plan that meant I could keep swimming since I had up until April 2012 spent a year doing a combination of swimming and running to lose weight and get fitter and I just don’t like running enough to do it full time. This time around I was already competent up to 10K to start with so I’m planning to do the ‘FIRST’ method plan for half marathon distance followed immediately by their plan for marathon distance. 

As I write this, I am on week 13 of my 34-week quest to become an averagely competent marathon runner. That's 34% completed!  As prescribed, I run three times a week and cross-train (swim) twice a week and so far I’ve found the plan pretty challenging but just about do-able. I hope it works as my predicted marathon time based on the reality of my pre-training fitness should be around 4.5 hours and that would be a dramatic improvement on 2007 (5:52:34!).  

I've been training since late August and using Iain's Garmin watch with the aid of a post-it note (I didn't understand how to program the watch) to time and run the very specific paces that FIRST stipulates. Iain surprised me with a gift of my very own Garmin Forerunner a few weeks ago so you can now see here the crazy number of times so far, even only since October, I've run round the local parks. 
Both Iain and my run archives are always up to date and can be accessed through the permanent link on the right of the site.
Also, Iain and I can now go out running at the same time of day although not physically together as he's quicker than me!

On an emotional level I've found the training to be helpful in having a goal to work towards when everything else feels it's in disarray and my fundamental belief structure has been turned on its head. Time out running, particularly early in the day when it's just me, the wildlife and the dog-walkers/twitchers feels uncomplicated and allows reflection that brings some tears, but the ducks don't seem to mind :)

Begin the Beguine

Nothing starts from nothing, a bit of running begets a bit more running and old habits die hard. 

It has been 5 years since I last wrote on a blog - the 2007 Marathon blog to be precise - and in the intervening, there have a few miles worn in to the trainers and no doubt a few errors worn in to the DNA. Welcome back!

As this is the first post, I will keep it brief and cover the basics...

The why is covered throughout the site; the where is all over London; the when is 21st April 2013 and this and future posts will cover the how; more precisely how Iain is going to run a sub-4 marathon.

Having tried and failed twice (2007 - 04:49:08 / 2010 - 04:05:57), I have placed my athletic future in the hands of Messrs. Pierce, Murr and Moss, the authors behind the so-far-fantastic Run Less, Run Faster.

Alison and I will undoubtedly spill the beans on the science and the experience as we go, but safe to say that we have been already following the plan for several weeks, and it is going ok!

In the 2007 blog, I added in run analysis for those with a particular interest in the details and I will be doing so again, but this time I have technology working overtime for me: what used to be 30 minutes work on graphics is now only a cut and paste away - here is a archive of all my runs (click on Slideshow, top-left for detailed view) courtesy of Garmin Connect - if you are a member, feel free to befriend me, or whatever the term is! 
Both Alison and my run archives are always up to date and can be accessed through the permanent link on the right of the site!

Please do feel free, indeed we implore you, to comment on our posts (no registration needed) as it makes us feel less alone. We will be using twitter (feed at bottom of page) to post the more flippant and emotional content.

Emily exemplified that we make a living by what we get, but we make a life by what we give; here's to a new journey.

Iain