Loving the taper

So, courtesy of Worthing Harriers I have finally joined the “20” club and I must say it’s a relief to get a run under my belt with a 2 in front of it. One of the most quoted pieces of Marathon lore suggests that first timers should train for the first 20 miles and then do the 6.2 for themselves, we shall see how true this is. For now however I am happy that my preparation has been as good as injury, work and personal commitments has allowed.

In recent weeks I’ve carried a bit of an achilles strain and consequently missed 10 days of training plus a blog, sorry. I hadn’t really felt it during the training runs but after Silverstone it was pretty bad and daily thereafter it provided me with a nagging reminder that what I am doing needs proper preparation and can’t be taken for granted. I prescribed myself plenty of ice and vitamin I and kept my fingers crossed.

Fate chose the perfect date for my first 20 miler but thankfully the mid-week forecast of high winds and rain proved to be a little extreme. It was a little windy but what do you expect on the seafront in April? Laps aren’t usually my cup of tea but they seemed to work for me this time, 4 lots of 5 miles? Piece of cake……….

Lap 1 saw me start in woolly hat and gloves but these were discarded at the end of the lap. Wendy and I had managed to park on the course near the start and only lost a few seconds stashing them in the car. From there on I think it’s fair to say that on lap 2 we took it more steadily, on lap 3 we took it easy for a bit and then slowed down on lap 4. Initially 10.5 minute miles felt ridiculously slow but after 2 hours we slowed further to 11’s and I reckon that this is our expected race day pace. It’s so slow compared to some of the training runs but I have to remind myself that I will need to sustain it for around 5 hours and I have calculated a simple algebraic calculation which backs this up; (a+w)*b=S² (a=age, w=weight, b=beer, s=slooow).

I only have two criticisms of the race:
1 More lavvies please
2 I know we all have drawers full of them but sometimes, just sometimes you think you deserve a Mutley Medal for a job well done and what do you get, a towel. I ask you.

As a more positive footnote to Worthing I would like to thank the HJ supporters and fellow runners on Sunday for keeping us motivated, particularly Alan & Nigel, and the marshals were fantastic. As usual Keith V picked up a V50 medal (perhaps he should change his name to Keith V50?) and the ladies claimed 2nd team prize. Well done also to Julia, Jo & Sarah andf the other HJ's out there. No medals for us but satisfaction of a job well done.

And so I meander back to the start of this blog, 20 + 6.2, can it be done? Near the end of the last lap I asked myself if I could go round once more and I found that mentally I could, whether my body will be quite as willing in 3 weeks time I don’t know. I find it ironic that looking back over the previous weeks it will be the 12 mile lollipop which will haunt me and not the 18’s & 20, weird, but having broken the back of the training I feel relief and anticipation in equal measure. Time to taper, beer & pizza anyone?

Weekly total: 26.1
Long run: 20
Weight: 95.2kg
FGI: 8

Quote of the week:
"On a given day, a given circumstance, you think you have a limit. And you then go for this limit and you touch this limit, and you think, 'Okay, this is the limit.' And so you touch this limit, something happens and you suddenly can go a little bit further. With your mind power, your determination, your instinct, and the experience as well, you can fly very high." -Ayrton Senna

N