Terena writes:
Nils asked the big question … did I still intend to run London! Yes, I bloody do! But I’m aware that I am lucky, and sometimes things just don’t line up. I was so disappointed for Jane to read in her blog that she had made the incredibly difficult decision to pull out.
I was lucky enough to spend time with Jane driving around the countryside during the 2023 Green Belt Relay event, where she shared her story with me. Jane is an incredibly strong woman and certainly not someone who would make such a decision light-heartedly. This latest challenge, I have no doubt, will be faced with the same determination to come back on top and when Jane is ready to run London, I hope I am at Mile 23 cheering her all the way. What an inspirational woman.
But yes, Nils, I am still running. Training is progressing smoothly with the miles slowly increasing. But I’m not going to lie, it is, at times, a challenge to fit everything in and get enough rest time too! I am lucky that, in my line of work, I will have 2 weeks away from the ‘office’ for the Easter holidays where I will be in taper and able to focus on recharging my batteries. The downside is that I will need to be back in class on the Monday morning after the marathon! So, no marathon finishers brunch for me – just a school dinner!
I’m getting to the stage of pouring over too much marathon literature! After the latest read, “It’ll all be alright in the long run!”, I’ve decided to cut down my three 20-milers to just one. It will take me longer than 3 hours to complete, which seems to be a cut off point for your body to recover well enough and could potentially be counterproductive to run for much longer. That said, other research indicates 4 hours to be the max. So, I’ll do one 20-miler, see how I respond and then possibly set my limit at 3 hours for the rest of my long runs. In the back of my mind, I’m always conscious of the old injuries (knee and hamstring) and I don’t want to push the training and have an old injury rear its ugly head. It’s always been my goal, with this marathon, to be on the start line feeling fit and strong over chasing a time, so I’m making sure I look after my body during training.
I have finally got around to testing out Tailwind - a powder nutrition that is added to water. It contains both carbohydrates and electrolytes and reviews claim that it is much easier on the stomach than gels. Having tested out gels every 40mins on a previous long run, I wasn’t exactly thrilled with the effects it had on me later that day. It’s a worry of mine, that gels added to on-the-day nerves, those effects may be accelerated and that is not something that I want to consider! So, giving the Tailwind a shot! I’ve used it on two long runs so far, and all good. I mix one stick to 500ml of water totalling 50g of carbs. By my calculations I will need around 50g an hour and I’m not convinced I can drink 500ml every hour! So, I’m teaming it up with gels as I think my stomach can cope with 3 or 4 gels over the 26 miles. That would give me around 190g of carbs (electrolytes are included in the Tailwind) for the duration, leaving about 100g still to find from somewhere! I’ve seen a lot of people suggesting Kendal Mint Cake is a good option; I’ll investigate!
Long run today (March 10th) was a tough one. I’d bumped my Thursday 6 miles to Saturday so setting out early Sunday morning my legs still felt a bit tired. I had 17 miles to do and was following a route a friend had done the day before. As always, I had great company with Kelli and David – we always seem to manage to find something to goof around with! This time it was a wooden toad!
I think David is about to leap the frog!
Mile 13 I hit a bit of a wall! It’s funny isn’t it, how you can run a half marathon ok but get to mile 13 of a long run and it literally feels like you can’t take another step!
I tried to convince the guys to let me get the bus home, but they were having none of it! Still, the 2-minute sit down was welcomed! So, I pulled myself together, visualised the last 4 miles and cracked on with the job! And this leads me to point to consider. I can’t visualise London because I’ve never run it! I think it might be time to start getting out on the route for my long runs so that I have some knowledge of where I’m going!
Well, that’s the last two weeks of training accounted. The next two weeks will bring my longest run on the plan, 20 miles, getting out on the route and then from there it’ll be another de-load week leading into taper! Yikes – it’s getting closer!
As always, run safe, run happy and see you around!