Equally big congratulations go to Dave Brady on completing his 600th marathon. If you have run a handful of marathons in Ireland it is absolutely inevitable that you have run into Dave, who also happens to be an even better gentleman than runner.
Back on my home patch, training is tapering obviously. The knee has settled down well enough. It's gotten to the stage where I generally don't feel it any more but on a couple of occasions when running I can just about get the slightest hint of an issue and during my yoga class on Monday I found it impossible to sit on my knees (so I didn't). My yoga teacher thinks it could actually be the hamstrings rather than the knee itself, though I have no way to be certain. Anyway, I'm increasingly optimistic that it won't be an issue in Albi - apart from the interruption to my training.
The coach wants me to rest on Monday but since I hadn't done any training that would require resting from I decided to head out anyway. I took our new dog, a beautiful and very well behaved Labrador, out for a run but it turns out her stamina needs work - she got tired very quickly (and I was running exceptionally slowly even by my recent standards!) and was knackered when I brought her back home after just a mile.
Tuesday and Wednesday were very easy, and Thursday I did one last speed workout, 9 days from Albi, which is pretty standard stuff. The plan said 3 times 5 minutes at 10k effort, which is a mellow enough workout, the biggest problem being not having a clue what my 10k pace is at the moment. I settled at 6:30-6:40 pace, but then again I ran the workout entirely on feel rather than looking at the watch, so I'm not sure why I even bothered to think about the pace beforehand.
The most important thing is, the knee behaved fine throughout. I very slightly felt it on two occasions but that's it, and I'm happy about that. The other details are that I ran 6:53 / 6:34 / 6:42 pace respectively. That's rather uneven pacing but my reasoning is that the first one is almost always slow as I'm still warming up (despite running over 3 miles of actual warm-up in this case) and the third one contained a 180-degree turn, which inevitably slowed me down. Or maybe that's just an excuse. It doesn't matter, training is done now and all that's left is wait until race day arrives (well, that and preparing mentally and finalising the race plan and actually getting myself to France ...)
- 10 Oct
- 3+ miles, 31:54, 9:58 pace, HR 127
- 11 Oct
- 7 miles, 1:06:30, 9:30 pace, HR 137
- with strides
- 12 Oct
- 4 miles, 38:28, 9:30 pace, HR 132
- 13 Oct
- 8 miles, 1:04:08, 8:01 pace, HR 151
- 3 x 5 min @ 6:52, 6:34, 6:42
Best if luck in Albi.
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