Off I Go

For anyone looking to follow the race online, this page looks like it will contain the results. I have no idea if there will be a live tracker, though:

http://www.albi24h.fr/resultats-final-championnat-de-france-et-course-open/

There might be something on the IAU website, as there had been in Turin. There is a preview of the race up there already, where one of my Austrian teammates as well as two Irish runners are getting a name check.

As for what was left of training, I rested on Monday, ran 7 easy miles on Tuesday at initial 24-hours race effort, and another 7 on Wednesday, this time with 2 miles at marathon effort, with the same usual caveat that I have no idea what my present marathon time would be, so as always I ended up running entirely by feel. That's is a bit tricky for marathon pace because 2 miles at marathon pace are just going to feel rather easy, so in the end I ran too easy because even at the most pessimistic outlook my marathon pace had not deteriorated to 7:57 pace!

I found Robert's comment on my last post rather enlightening. I had stated that I felt undertrained and he reminded me of the brutal back-to-back runs my coach had made me do. To be honest, I had kind of forgotten about those already. I had looked at the weekly mileages and was struck by how low they had been compared to what I would usually have done. I guess that's something to cling to - I don't like that terminology but this time there was an element of quality over quantity that was new to my training.

And that's that. I'll drive to Dublin tonight, catch an early flight on Thursday morning and will be in Albi shortly after lunchtime.

The race will start on Saturday 10 am local time, which is 9 am here in Ireland. I'm officially a nervous wreck already.

P.S. Apparently my race number will be 1!

18 Oct

7 miles, 1:06:12, 9:27 pace, HR 131

19 Oct

7 miles, 1:01:08, 8:43 pace, HR 139

   with 2 miles @ 7:57 (HR 149)