One More Step

You never know, but things might be looking up. Yesterday was the first day in about a week when I didn’t feel slightly sick. The headache is gone, and just a bit of a cough remains. With four days to go I think I have fought off most of the cold, and who knows, I might actually be healthy on the start line.

I’m following the taper that the Mystery Coach has outlined in a post a while ago, and it’s a taper, no doubt about it. Today might have been my last running day before the marathon. I’m travelling to Inverness on Saturday, and might not feel like running that day, which would mean three consecutive days of zero right before the race. Today’s run was a last test before the race itself. I got a up a few minutes early, to have time for a warm-up. I followed the same routine I’ll try to do on Sunday, namely running about 100 meters and then walking back, then repeat with a slightly faster run until you’re close to the intended pace. I only did 3 of those, and then I was too anxious to get started. The idea was to be able to hit marathon pace pretty much from the word go, just like on race day. I started out much too quickly, after a minute I reigned myself in a bit. The idea was to run the first mile in about 7:30 and the next 2.5 at 7:15 pace. Of course I got it wrong initially, and the first mile went by in 7:02. That’s definitely the fastest opening mile I’ve ever done in a training run. I slowed down just a little bit, and was curious what the next mile would bring, as there was a fairly steep hill in the middle, but I hit bullseye with 7:15. The third mile saw me questioning the pace. The calves and the hamstrings felt much heavier than I would want them to feel just a tenth into the marathon distance, but I kept going. That mile was slightly downhill but against a headwind, and I came through in 7:11. From then on the same pace started to feel considerably easier, but I’m not sure if that’s because I had warmed up by then, because the worst of the headwind was behind me, or because I knew that the effort would be over very soon. Anyway, the last half-mile passed by in 3:37, right on pace, and I turned around and jogged easily for a mile. The one thing I noticed here was that my HR was in the high 150s and refused to come down. I proceeded with a set of strides, and again noticed that the HR was very slow to come down afterwards. I felt fine all the way home, but the high heart rate is a bit of a concern. It might be related to the cold, in which case I can just hope that I can recover fully over the next 4 days.

And now, look what I just found. For months I have unsuccessfully been trying to find an elevation profile of the Loch Ness marathon. And judging by the search terms that keep leading people to my blog, I’m not the only one. Therefore I was quite pleased when someone posted this in the Loch Ness forum the other day:



The start is on high ground, and keeps dropping until mile 8. Then it’s reasonably flat until mile 16.5m where more than 2 miles of climbing await the weary traveller. Another hill at mile 21 is all that stands in the way until the finish. I’m sure I’m not the only one who thinks that this elevation profile is extremely similar to the Boston marathon. As I’ve heard often enough by now, Boston can be fast but it is a difficult course, and the most important thing is not to get carried away on the early downhill miles. I’ll try and keep that in mind.

2 Oct

0 miles

3 Oct

7 miles, 53:10, 7:35 pace, HR 160
first 3.5 miles in 7:02, 7:15, 7:11, 3:37 (avg. 7:10 pace), 5x150 strides on way home