Taper time

This week I will be mainly doing the following:

• Wearing my trainers with work clothes around the office and as everyday footwear.
• Eating.  A lot.
• Drinking water at every opportunity.
• Going to bed by 10pm *ROCK AND ROCK*
• Shunning most public outings to make sure I fully partake in the above activities.

**IT’S TAPER TIME**

In all honesty, I haven’t really given up very much during the past few weeks for marathon training.  I didn’t really have a birthday party like I normally would – big night out with drinks and dancing – because I wanted to schedule a long run at the weekend, but I did get to go to Paris for the weekend, run there, and then have a birthday lunch and dinner (with some wine), so I didn’t exactly miss out. 
There hasn’t been a huge amount of sacrifice for my training, but I’m not sure whether this is more of a reflection that I don’t really go out as much as I used/as I like to think I do….sure, I didn’t drink last week when I met my friend for Tuesday night drinks, but it was Tuesday night, so again, this wasn’t *really* a bad thing….

This week I’m also trying to get organised and *ready* for the weekend so it’s not all a mad panic on Thursday.  I have purchased my marathon fuel:

(prefer to call it fuel – it makes me feel far more hardcore)

And tonight I’ll be picking up the marathon essentials from Boots….I think we all know what that means.  I have finally made my mind up about my kit after obsessing about it for f-a-r too long, which is good.  As the shorts were a nightmare, I’m going to go with leggings and a vest, and might take an old (but comfortable) pair of Nike capris along too, if I can re-lace the waistband just in case its as hot as everyone keeps predicting….

It’s almost time….

Shorts

So night’s run wasn’t *quite* four miles.  It wasn’t *quite* to the end of the road.  I intended to go out to test run the shorts I bought for the marathon, and break my trainers in.  I got home, changed, fed the cat, and headed out.  Chose my music and started jogging down the road to warm up.  And then stopped.  Stopped the music, took my headphones out and called my sister to give her the shorts report.

I won’t go into it in detail but those shorts were intent on going places that was never intended for them.  EXCELLENT decision to give them a test run (see what I did there?) the week before the race – I literally couldn’t get to the end of my road, they were so annoying – but now I’m back to running (kit) spare one.  I’m still dithering over just wearing a pair of full length leggings, but I am slightly worried about a) how hot it’s going to be out there, and b) whether I’ll get a really dodgy tan mark from Capri leggings that’ll last all summer.  I realise that my second reason is vain, but Vic said she had this for months last year after the VLM and I don’t want to play that game.

So full lengths or capris…?!  Think I might make an emergency trip to Sweaty Betty tonight before dinner to see what they’re offering as I need anything new to test drive tomorrow on my LAST LONG RUN BEFORE SPAIN. 

Planning to run to Battersea Park and back before meeting friends for coffee.  Then we’re cheering for the Head of the River Race, and once that’s done (five miles on the pain train), the husband and I are heading to Twickenham for the match.  My Irish husband and me.  Fingers crossed there’s no fighting, although he has called in for shamrock reinforcements to be sent over from Cork…..

New trainers

As mentioned earlier, I have new trainers.  As I have previously mentioned, my toes are looking rough.  I was fitted for my trainers last year over the summer when I had two half marathons planned (both ended up falling by the wayside due to wedding plans – one was our own wedding, the other was a very close friend’s) but I did the obligatory run in front of a camera, marveled at how bandy my ankles are, agreed that I needed good trainers, bought the good trainers, and then ran in the good trainers.  And the trainers were good….for a while.
 
They didn’t really bother me too much when training earlier in the year, but my toes have really been suffering in the last couple of months.  Initially I put this down to increased mileage but I mentioned it to a guy in Sweat Shop who, after asking me how marathon training was going, said “well, your nails really shouldn’t be going black, it’s really not just a normal part of training – it sounds like your shoes are too small”.  This got me thinking, so I mentioned it in Runner’s Need too when I popped in during lunch for some gels.  I got the same answer – your toe nails shouldn’t really be going black, falling off and getting infected – your shoes sound too small.  They asked me to bring them in to have a look at and guess what?  Toooooo small.  Awesome.  A week and a half before the marathon and my shoes are bust.

But then they brought out the (giant man sized) Asics and I was sold in one try – running on the treadmill felt great and they corrected my borked ankles in the same way as my smaller shoes – AND they were very pretty.  Neon pretty.  I’m not sure whether its right to describe a man’s shoe as pretty but whatever….

See?

Lesson learned - get a proper gait analysis and then make sure your shoes are bigger than you usually wear.  These bad boys are TWO SIZES bigger than my usual shoes, which means that they are truly gigantic *yey* but as long as my toes don't end up falling off, I don't care.

So they’re getting broken in tonight and in a just over a week’s time, they’ll be running the marathon with me.  Boom time.

Eighteen miles

So it happened: the LONG run. 

It was long – eighteen miles of trotting – not as long as I had initially hoped, but long enough to give me the confidence that a) I’ll be fine on 25 March shuffling around Barcelona, and b) I needed new trainers.  Both important points, but the second was slightly desperate as the dearth of running advice out there shrieks that if you don’t break your trainers in weeks in advance of the marathon, your feet will essentially fall off.  I jest…obviously the advice not to run in brand new trainers is very valid, but if one person who has never run further than two miles winces when they spot the new trainers in my office and tells me that I should have run in them by now, I might scream.

Anyway, I digress…the run was good on the whole.  I had been rather ill on the Saturday; in fact so ill that I had been told by a couple of trusted sources not to run this weekend at all.  I did the obligatory google search of “running with a cold” and came up with completely contradictory advice on whether to head out on the Sunday.  One side told me that if it was “above the neck” (mine was – sore ears, throat and cold) then I’d be fine but shouldn’t do too far; the other side that any long distance with any kind of illness would be hugely detrimental and I was being ridiculous.  I definitely couldn’t do anything on Saturday – I almost fell asleep drinking two flat whites when I finally dragged myself out of the house – but I was determined that I was going to be better and would be out running on Sunday.  After an afternoon of moping on the sofa and generally being a misery, I suddenly felt a thousand times better just before we headed out to see Simon Callow in Being Shakespeare.  Whether it was the healing power of the shower (and the 300+ vitamins I had been chowing all day) or the thrill of one of the best performances I have ever seen, I felt a thousand times better returning home that night after a late sushi dinner. 

Sunday dawned and I went for more coffee trips after listening to The Archers (yes, I’m an old lady in a runner’s clothing) and then decided to just head out on in the afternoon and see how far I could do.  I wanted to practice in my “marathon vest” and with the hydration belt (even typing that makes me laugh as it seems so ridiculous….but entirely necessary) and although I didn’t get to Tower Bridge as planned, I did manage to get to Blackfriars without punching any tourists along the South Bank (huge achievement).  Eighteen miles in just under three and a half hours *boom time*.  This was dead on my marathon pace and slower that I have been doing my shorter runs during the week, which had been my main aim for the whole exercise.  So I was pleased.

Things to remember for the marathon:
a) running in sunglasses makes you feel like a ninja so make sure you remember them for Barcelona
b) running in leggings in the heat will make you like you’re boiling alive so make sure you wear shorts
c) compression leggings help after long distances even if the affect is psychosomatic
d) running along the South Bank on a Sunday afternoon is good practice for swerving marathon crowds
e) drinking red wine with professional athletes who have just done Olympic trials is awesome.

Nice days until touch down in Spain…..

En Paris

Time is marching on: there are TWO AND A HALF WEEKS left until I run 26.2 miles.  I just had to rewrite that sentence because I thought I still had three weeks left.  But no; there are less than that *SHRIEK*

Training has been going ok recently, although there hasn’t been much of it to speak of…..I’m not really sure why but having reflected on the sixteen mile run and the half marathon, I am feeling slightly happier about the prospect of the marathon than I have done in a while.  I have been browsing websites and running magazines for marathon advice (must always be taken with a pinch of salt) and it has put my mind at rest, rather than GIVEN ME THE FEAR, which is how things were previously.  As my husband has been saying from the start, a lot of marathon preparation appears to be mental. 

I am probably fit enough to get round the marathon course.  I wouldn't get there quickly, I certainly wouldn't be “racing”, but I'm fairly sure I could do it without collapsing (fingers crossed).  This is (obviously) the point of the long runs in a training plan: to give you confidence.  They have done just that; I never thought I’d get through sixteen miles, but looking back on here (another thanks to Running Yoda for emphasising the importance of recording training), I can remember that whilst I couldn’t have knocked out another ten miles there and then, the thought of carrying on didn’t terrify me.  The half really helped because it was a “race”; I would have much preferred to have run around the streets of London early in the morning rather than hammering around Dorney Lake in the roaring wind before lunch trying to escape creepers, but it was good practice as *shock horror* the Barcelona marathon isn’t being run around near home.  It was good to get out of my comfort zone (as comfortable as running can ever be) and run somewhere where I wasn’t completely happy.  Well, somewhere where I was actually fairly angry at the wind and the creepers, and would have quite liked to stop, but I didn’t because then I would have been even more angry at myself, and that’s just crazy talk.

So training has been average, but instead of beating myself up about it, I ran five miles when in Paris  for my birthday and the rugby last weekend (hence the name of this post….) and it was awesome.  It was also the first time I have EVER woken up, looked out of the window and thought “wow, what a nice day for a run, I’m going out”.  Really, the first time ever.  Normally I force/trick myself out and then surprise myself that I enjoyed it.  It’s as if I’m programmed to think that exercise is rubbish and unenjoyable, which is a whole other post, but on Sunday morning, I seemed capable of remembering that actually, it was great.  These were the rewards:

Pretty awesome.

So the L-O-N-G run is planned for this Saturday with a cheeky four/five miler tonight as a warm up.  The plan for Saturday is to get up at about 7am, eat, and then run twenty miles in a loop from home.  BOOMTIME.  I know I said I hate the loops, but the thought of running twenty miles from home and then having to get a train/tube makes me shudder, so I’m running a bridge-to-bridge loop with plans to be back by lunchtime.  Bizarrely I’m looking forward to it.  Either that, or I’m looking forward to the obligatory “LOOK WHAT I’VE DONE BEFORE YOU GOT OUT OF BED” photos I’ll be posting all over twitter once I’m back*….

(*I’m aware that I am a running loser, but I’m happy to do whatever it takes to keep on trucking….)