Ok, so it's Friday, bag packed, off to the airport tonight and I'm really looking forward to it now. Final week of training went great, 50 miles done and the final weekend of running was particularly good. On Saturday I went up to Norwich parkrun (as we were back visiting the folks in Suffolk) and ran 17:40 for 2nd place. Not quite as quick as my pre-London 17:23 but a good indicator all the same. Then Sunday was a final medium-long run run of 12 miles. I didn't expect much from it as I was slightly hungover from a wedding reception the night before, so I decided to not look at the watch and just push-on with it. I knew I was pushing harder than I should have been but I felt good so stuck with it; Darren, if you're reading this, do as I say not as I do right : ) . Still, I was genuinely surprised when I checked the garmin at the end to see I averaged 6:29mm pace! Well pleased with that as it didn't feel brutal, I would have guessed I was going 20secs slower. It was really the confidence booster I needed that something good might be in there.
This week has been pretty light, just a steady run on Monday, 4x 1 mile on Tues (sub 6-min pace felt comfortable) and a steady 4 miles yesterday on the treadmill, just to turn the legs over. I've been making sure I'm getting enough sleep, eating cleanly and on the scales this morning I think I'm the lightest I've ever been pre-marathon (69.2kg). I feel ready, as ready as I'm going to be anyway.
There's been no talk of target times in this blog, I'm aware. And that's been intentional. London certainly knocked my confidence. I'm still pleased I put it all out there and went for the low 2:5*, but I don't think I can justify doing it again (whether I am, or am not in that shape) when my PB is still 2 years old and could be revised with a much more conservative run than that. So being conservative will officially be the plan. I'd happily take another sub-3 of any sort (as although I've spent a lot of time trying to run them, I still only have one to my name), but equally I'm also prepared for it to go completely wrong. Because with the marathon, it's just so long that there's always a risk it might. And I feel better being on-board with that from the start.
It seems likely there will be some sort of race-day tracking on the marathon website so my bib number is 576 if any of you want to see how I'm getting on. Race starts at 9:30am (8:30am UK time) on Sunday...
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