15/4/16 – Second to Last Will & Testament

Today was my last long run before that really long one I signed up for next Sunday and it occurs to me I’ve been writing this nonsense for nearly six months. I’d love to say it’s flown by, but now I kinda wish I still had another couple of months instead of seven short days.

I guess it’s just part of the Taper Madness that Marc warned me about. Today’s run wasn’t the easiest either. I decided to split the run between a parkrun and an easy 7 mile jog home. Hark! “An easy 7 mile jog”… what sort of loony have I become?

As it turned out, it was a rather tough run, after a deliberately mid-paced Parkrun at Lloyd (32.55… still very wet and muddy in places, thanks for asking).

It nearly wasn’t mid-paced though, I noticed I was keeping up with the 28 minute pacer over the first 500m, and started to entertain the notion of trying to keep with him for the whole run. After a couple of seconds, sense kicked in and a slowed to a more sensible pace and didn’t even get tempted to kick on when Ewa passed me just before the hill.

The run home was undulating, a long climb for a mile and half, then a short sharp downhill. This was followed by another mile climb, then it was gently down for a mile and half and the rest was pretty flat. For an easy run,  the gradients made it quite a challenge and coming on top of a hilly, sticky parkrun, my legs were certainly feeling it. By the end of the seven miles (1:22:56), I did wonder how on earth I was going to manage a further 16 miles next week.

That sort of thinking will get me nowhere so quickly filed it in the mental compartment labelled “Taper Doubts” and slammed it shut. It probably didn’t help spending best part of two days sitting on my arse driving to Liverpool and back either.

Aside from a bit of mild knee protest – due to stupidly not using Voltarol on it before the run – the physical heebie-jeebies haven’t hit me yet. Sue hasn’t been so lucky and has been feeling under-the-weather for a couple for days now and has had to postpone her last long run.  Understandably, she’s not a happy bear right now, not least because I’m keeping well away from her… although on second thoughts, she probably sees that as a bonus.

So, onto the last week of the taper: the joys of a couple of easy 5Ks early on, some tickover gym and swim work, plenty of spa, early nights and carb-loading.

The latter I’m particularly looking forward to.