Manchester Taper

Tapering. I have to be honest, I'm not a great fan of it. It's not that I don't appreciate the fact that it gets the fatigue out of your system, but running no more than 5 miles a day in the last week and even taking a whole day off *gasp* is just not me.

On the other hand I'm really looking forward to the weekend. I used to go to Manchester several times a year, even if I usually only saw the area between Piccadilly and Maine Road, but I haven't been back to Eastlands since August 2003 when David Sommeil headed in a last-minute equaliser against newly-promoted Portsmouth (which was just about Sleepy's only positive contribution all season), and I'm looking forward to Saturday's match against West Brom just as much as I do to the marathon the following day. I can't believe I left it almost 13 years. That almost as bad as some of Un***d's bandwagon jumpers.

The magic number for the weekend is 3. 3 goals for City, sub-3 marathon for me. Let's see.

The standard in Manchester is just phenomenal. The 3:05 that was good enough for 4th place in Tralee would have been 651st in Manchester last year, and that's despite Manchester being only a couple of weeks before the London marathon! The only marathon I've ever done with a similar class field was Boston. Make no mistake, having so many quality runners on the road is a good thing and might help me (at least on a good day).

There is an online tracker, and a mobile version of the same.

Training this week is really just barely enough to keep me ticking over and doesn't deserve to be called that. 5 miles on Tuesday were followed by the same on Wednesday, though with a few fast strides towards the end. Thursday was off (I hated Thursday). Friday was barely a warm-up and in a few hours I'll hop into the car for Dublin and then the plane to Manchester, meeting up with one-man-running-club, ace photographer and fellow City fan Marty.

Here we go.

All the best to anyone running in Manchester, Rotterdam, Connemara or anywhere else for that matter!

5 Apr

5 miles, 40:27, 8:05 pace, HR 138

6 Apr

5 miles, 39:25, 7:53 pace, HR 143

7 Apr

0

8 Apr

3 miles, 24:57, 8:19 pace, HR 131