Thursday 19 February 2015

The plague of respiratory illness

Three days to go to the marathon. All of the running is done, I just need to survive the plague of respiratory infections for a few more days and then get down to business. I am surrounded by illness: coughing and sneezing in the office, in the elevators, in the supermarkets. We are a city, a nation, full of snot and mucus as Winter heads towards Spring and it feels like the zombie holocaust is taking hold. As marathon day approaches and the culmination of several months of hard work is (hopefully) about to be realised, it becomes all too apparent that there is an unwritten law about not taking days off work for a cold. I am equally guilty of this, but right now I want the unwritten law to be fully rescinded, as being stopped in my tracks by a cold at this point would be devastating. Don't bring your illness too close to me or I may feel obliged to fend the zombie off with a baseball bat. So far I have fought off one cold last week and just have a slight, lingering cough that hopefully will improve rather than worsen over the next couple of days. I am nervous and excited but overall raring to go!

Friday 13 February 2015

Into single figures

Into single figures now with 9 days to go to the marathon. I've had the official e-mail from the organisers, I'm on the start list, and it's all becoming quite real! I'm just fighting off the last of a fairly aggressive cold that enforced additional tapering for a few days (i.e., not doing any training at all). In some ways, this was perfect timing as I hope I have enough days to get fully better, as long as I don't catch anything else; there aren't any long runs left to do, so I just need to survive a few relatively short jogs to keep the legs going.

I have been looking up what are reasonable running times for the marathon (e.g., http://www.runnersgoal.com/how-many-runners-can-run-a-marathon-in-under-4-hours/). It seems about 25-30% of people can run a marathon in under 4 hours, and about 1.5-2% can run one in under 3 hours. This means that if I could meet my target of 3:30 I would be around the top 15% mark, which would make me incredibly happy! However, I don't want to get too hung up on exact timings and need to be fluid to react to whatever happens on the day and not kill myself...I've seen the elevation profile for the event (http://connect.garmin.com/course/4695237) and it is up and down to say the least! Just finishing a marathon is a huge achievement that I would be very proud to accomplish.

Monday 9 February 2015

The joy of tapering

It is an absolute joy to have entered the tapering period. The gradual winding down of legs and miles and easing the body back to a lull before the storm of the event. Some would say it is so joyous that there is an argument for tapering all the time, and never running again. This is to forget that part of the joy in the rest is having earned it, and its contrast with the hard work that came before. There is also a clear satisfaction to being able to 'wind down' to a half marathon or some such distance, demonstrating the achievements that have been made to make this distance seem suddenly so manageable. Not that running will come to a complete halt - I'll still be running three times per week, but the distances will drop as low as four miles at the end, allowing the body to prepare itself for the long distance to come. Now it's time to batten down the hatches, avoid illness and injury at all costs, and come out blazing for the trail in two week's time.