Nearly there!

Collected my bib today. I have mixed feelings. It was a great expo, it had all the buzz and energy thats typical of a large marathon expo so I'm excited now but I'm also feeling pretty close to a nervous wreck. The butterflies that normally spawn in my stomach prior to race day are a hundred-fold this time around and premature by a week since the expo thats normally done the day before the event has been advanced to the weekend before the race. Given how my last two long runs have gone, I think my nervousness and lack of confidence is completely justified but I must talk myself out of it as these feelings are completely unhelpful.

To make matters worse, on Wednesday, I tripped over one of my cats (I think she did it on purpose!) and sprained my right ankle. Its not too bad but its not alright either leading to too much tapering on Taper week. By too much tapering I mean zero running. I have been working out and doing strength sessions (which now I'm wishing I had done more of during these past so many weeks) but haven't really run or walked during this week. Maybe tomorrow. And then maybe another short sweet shakeout run on Wednesday and then cross my fingers and hope for the best on Saturday.

Ever since last Sunday (after the abysmal run) I've entertained thoughts of dropping out of the race. I try and quickly push those thoughts out of my head and replace them with "I can run 20 miles. Its easy." It doesn't always work. Plus I'm still not completely over my second bout of flu and an irritating dry cough persists making it hard to get a good night's rest and so then recovery feels incomplete and it becomes all too easy to consider dropping out of the race. Then I figured, I've paid for the race so might as well go and collect the bib and goody bag (which was quite dismal) and then see how I feel after the shakeout run. Baby steps.  

On race day, I just need to complete the distance. Whether I run, walk or crawl, the aim is to just get to the finish line. I found out today that the cut off time for completing is 5 hours - which is great.. I figure even if I run/walk the 20 miles at 9'22" minutes to a km I can make it in the time. Which seems like plenty. Its sad though that after last week's run I have even lost confidence in my ability to walk to the finish line... :/ ... Wait, wait, positive thoughts! "I can run 20 miles. Its easy."

Abysmal

Today was my longest run of this training cycle. I was hoping it would go better than last week's long run so I could go into Race day feeling confident. The plan looked great on paper.. 6:00 run, 1:30 recovery walk x 30 sets. The run bit had a pace goal of 8'00" - 8'10" : nice and easy! Garmin estimated that I would be covering a distance of 27K in the whole time if it went as planned. Perfect!

I estimated that last week's recovery interval of 1 minute and the longer run interval of 9 minutes probably was the reason for the achy knee 2 hours into the run and the reason I had to do completely walk the last 1 hour or so. I assumed then that a shorter run interval (6:30 minutes) and a longer recovery walk interval (1:30 minutes) would get me more desirable results. Wrong!! 

I'm not quite sure why but quite early on in the run itself (around the 1 hour mark I think) the right knee started complaining. I tried telling myself it was all in the head and that it wasn't too bad and continued the run/walk plan for another hour or so. By the 2:30:00 mark, it had become quite clear to me that the pain was not in my head and that it was very much real. I decided then that I would have to walk the rest of the duration of the workout but in another half an hour or so even walking became quite painful and finally at 3:20:00 I called time of death and literally limped home. 

Crazily enough, I put the workout on pause mode to be completed later and the last 25 minutes of the workout was spent slowly pacing my living room later in the evening after I felt I had recovered some.

Abysmal.

Still here...

Eight weeks and no updates. You could be forgiven for thinking that I had thrown in my towel. But no, a trip to Australia, a cyclone, a wedding and a week-long snotty nose later, I'm still ploughing on.

I'm nearly at the end of my training period. I have just 3 weeks to Race day and my training has been less-than-stellar. Given everything that life had on offer these past couple of months, I just did not manage to stick to the plan. However, I did prioritise the weekly long run and whatever the situation, I tried to push things around and squeeze in at least that one crucial run every week.

The logic is this: considering that this is my first time attempting this distance, my primary goal is just to get to the finish line. To last on my feet for however long it takes to cover the distance. So then, the aim being endurance, the weekly long run gets a slight edge over all the other runs on the training chart. Don't get me wrong, everything else on there is important too - the tempo runs, the strength sessions and the walks - and in an ideal situation, my training log should have been covered with green ticks and not pock marked with so many red crosses - but in a less than ideal situation (such as what I've had) I'm glad that the green ticks are next to the long runs.

Yesterday I ran my longest run so far in the training cycle: 3hours and 20 minutes. I am still a little sick - a bad cough and a stuffy nose persists - so my sleep has been less-than-ideal and I am in general more fatigued that normal. So I'm not surprised that the run felt very laboured and tough. Anticipating that it wasn't going to be great, I had factored in 1 minute walks every 10 minutes, that probably helped me get to the end, but nevertheless, after about 2 and a half hours, my right knee started feeling strained (it is usually always the first to complain) and the last 50 minutes was spent mostly just walking. Still, I managed to cover about 23km.. which is the longest I have ever gone. Ever. Small victories :). 

This week is meant to be "Peak Week". Going to try and get in all my runs and at least 2 strength sessions and close the week with a 3hr 40 minute run. I'm hoping I'll be better rested and in better condition this Sunday than what I was in yesterday and that I will be able to keep running through the whole duration. If I can cover about 26/27 km in that time, I'll definitely feel better going in to race week.