Saturday, 14 March 2009

Keeping positive

The last few weeks have been tough. Cold, virus, cold again. It's bad luck, but the support and constant stream of donations coming through is a real motivator and reminds me of why I'm doing this.

Realistically, I've got to reassess my target time and am probably not looking at breaking 4 hours, but you never know how I might fare on the day. For one, I'm sure the start can't possibly be as hard as New York. No 5am coach to Statten Island followed by a 5 hour wait, sitting on a cold pavement (sidewalk), waiting for the off.

With 5 training weekends to go until the big day, theory says I need to clock up a couple of 18+ mile runs in the next 3-4, to allow me to taper in the final 2-3 weeks. Not sure what the theory is when you've not much to taper from, but I'll ignore that for now. So I plan on putting in a 20 mile run next Sunday, and I'm skiing the week after, so I'll miss that one. The 5th April is the Kingston Breakfast Run, a flat and fast 16M race along the banks of the Thames, very popular with London Marathoners wanting to get a last practice race under their belt.

Depending on what the legs feel like after that, I may try and squeeze in a 22 miler on the 12th and then ease off a little for a couple of weeks. One thing I felt last time was that I eased off too dramatically, and my legs weren't feeling race fit on the day. So I'm going to try to keep knocking out a couple of 5-10k runs in the closing stages, to keep them warm.

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