Marathon race - check

OK, the last 10k were very hard, but I made it to the finish in a not too embarrassing time of 4:08:28, chip time. Still under 4:10 official time.

That is a... err... a PB!

More to follow...

Last week

The countdown has begun, one week to go!

Ran 20k last weekend, it really felt odd! Tomorrow morning a short 30 minutes run, a bit longer on Wednesday and then rest till Sunday. I'm already getting nervous.

Tapering

From the Merriam-Webster online:

* Main Entry: taper
* Function: verb
* Inflected Form(s): ta·pered; ta·per·ing
* Date: 1610

intransitive verb
1 : to become progressively smaller toward one end
2 : to diminish gradually

That's what I am trying to do. Not very consistently, but that's what I'm trying.

After the over-enthusiasm of the last couple of posts, I finally had a difficult time deciding whether or not to run the marathon in Brussels. The weekend long run wasn't as good as I had hoped (swapped days, not enough rest) and that made me wonder quite a bit. Looked at the options, running the half now, running in Amsterdam, running in Florence... and eventually threw caution to the wind and registered for the thing! No turning back now, Brussels here I come!

Now I'm having a hard time convincing myself to take it easy and wind down the training. Like Haile says, "it's all too easy to train hard."

On a high

Another quality run this evening, 13k at just below marathon pace. Always felt relaxed and comfortable, this is almost too good to be true.

Looking forward to that 30k+ run on Saturday, I'm getting really afraid of speaking too soon.

Rest is good

I managed a 5k tempo run this evening, didn't exaggerate the effort but it did feel fast and hard.

Somehow I managed to beat my race time of two years ago in Ostend. On top of that my average heart rate was almost 20 bpm lower than on that occasion. This is almost scary...

Reality check

Back from a week off in the south of Portugal. Good break from work, but not so good to the running! I only managed to do four short runs, just over 20k in total. Shame on me.

On a more positive note, I did plenty of swimming and... err... sleeping.

Now planning a 30k+ long run this weekend and based on the quality of that run, decide whether or not to show up on the 4th. Fingers crossed.

Who's idea was it anyway?

I kind of knew that training for a marathon was never going to be easy but if the 30k long run of this morning is telling me something about the race itself, I'm getting a bit scared. I'm not quite sure that I can make the distance...

Actually the first 20k went by pretty comfortable, made 15 non-stop and then refilled every 5k. But the last 5k were quite painful. Shoulders, back and quads started suffering badly and running form was gone. On the positive side, after a good cold-hot shower, some good pasta and a little nap, I felt quite refreshed! It's amazing how quickly we can recover sometimes.

My training schedule had to be rearranged a bit. Normally I would have done a 22k long run today and a 32k next Sunday. But with a week holidays coming up, there's little chance I manage such a long run while way so I had to shuffle things a bit. Normally I should start the tapering three weeks from the race but probably I will still try to get another 20-miler in. More for confidence than anything else. But for the moment, let's take it a bit easier!...