Last Call

A lot of people who are running Chicago or TCM this weekend seem to be freaking out about the weather forecast. I guess that’s one thing I have on my side. Hot temperatures in the Scottish Highlands in October were never on the cards. I did have visions about running through the autumn storms, but the weather gods are on my side, it seems. It looks like wunderground, accuweather and the UK met office respectively are all pretty much in agreement:



I could do without the passing showers, but I’m not complaining. That’s pretty close to ideal.

What’s less than ideal is the cold that’s still in my system. On Wednesday I finally started to feel good again. Yesterday my sore throat was back, and I felt like crap again in the morning; however, I felt better as the day wore on. Today I woke with a sore throat but sans the feeling of fatigue. There’s not much I seem to be able to do at that stage, apart from hoping for the best. It’s just so bloody annoying that I’ve been as healthy as I’ve ever been throughout the training, and now that. Niamh thinks it’s taper related, that’s the third time out of 7 marathons/ultras that I’ve got sick during the taper, and it’s unlikely to be a coincidence. What I don’t know is how to avoid it.

Enough of that. I usually give a summary of my training before the race, and that’s my last chance of doing so:

Training:

22 weeks

Miles:

1660

Average mpw:

80

# runs of 20 miles or more:

11

Highest weekly mileage:

102.5

# of weeks 100+ miles:

3

# of PRs:

2 (5k and half)

injuries:

two; left knee in June, right shin in August, but neither caused me to miss any workouts

It’s a progression compared to last time round; I ran a lot of miles, but most of them rather slowly. If that’s good or bad depends on your training philosophy. I might have dropped the miles a bit too much in the last few weeks – the half marathon did cause a bit of havoc with my schedule, because I took 3 easy days either side of that race. What pleases me most is the consistency of my long runs. I ran 20+ miles once per week on 11 consecutive weeks, and not one of them left me feeling too tired. Looking back at the training I think I can handle a lot of volume very well. I always recovered very well from 2 hours+ runs, and never felt overwhelmed. I had a few weeks where I ran 4 runs of 2 hours or more, and I think that was the best training I’ve ever done. The one step back from the ultra training last spring was the lack of back-to-back 20 milers. They were tough, but I think they did a good job in building my endurance. There might be a place for them even in standard marathon training. I will have to think about it.

I’m driving to Dublin tonight after work, and I’m flying to Scotland tomorrow (Saturday) morning. I might not be back on a computer until Monday night. For anybody in Inverness (both of you) who want to spot me, I will be wearing either a green singlet or a grey t-shirt, depending on the mood and/or weather (singlet, probably). More specifically, I’m wearing glasses (that should be easier to spot), and my race number is 1771.

There are a lot of races this weekend, apart from Loch Ness I “know” people running Chicago, TCM, Mohawk-Hudson, Portland and Ottawa. Good luck to every single one of you!