Which still sounds like a decent amount of time. Until Teresa and I sat down last night and pencilled in our 'long' runs (we're talking 3-4 hours of running at a time :S) in our diaries last night for the final weeks leading up to the marathon. Then it didn't seem quite so far away!
So last night was the first time I had run since being back from skiing as I was lame on Tuesday and basically sat on my butt for two hours instead. We just did our seven mile route and are both going to do about ten miles this weekend as preparation for the half marathon on the 27th March. I will admit the first mile and a half was not comfortable. Coughing and spluttering (a consequence partly of 16 hours on a bus with 70 other people, air conditioning kindly pumping all our germs around!). But after that it got much better. Physically my legs felt really good (in fact after a week of plough, plough, PLOUGH!!! I think they were quite relieved to just be running). And lungs wise we still did a lot of talking so it's looking quite promising. No fear for the half, probably because we know that we can already do that distance, and I'm actually quite looking forward to running Sunday afternoon. Hoping for the sun to shine upon my face :)
I do feel more focused again after last night. We still have a lot of hard work ahead of us. But mentally I'm more positive. One of the lessons I had to learn very quickly when skiing was not to compare my performance to others. This is something I've struggled with for ages and have mentioned before. But last week we were all developing at such different speeds (snail pace for me) that I just had to keep referring back to how I was at the beginning of the week and how far I had come by the end.
So reflecting back for a moment. This time two years ago I was grossly overweight, couldn't run for more than a minute without stopping and walking and never thought I'd get past that. Today, fitter, healthier, can run for a couple of hours at a time without stopping, not daunted by the thought of running a half marathon. 10 weeks time...? What an exciting thought :)
I've decided not to gym today. It's been a busy week for me so I will be heading home and getting into my pyjamas probably before 5pm, and settling down for a quiet night in. Instead I'll swim in the morning for a change, then run Sunday.
I do need to sit down today and plan my eating for next week. In the lead up to the Bristol half we didn't get the whole carbo loading thing quite right. The theory is long run this weekend to deplete glycogen (stored energy) levels. Three or four days of a protein rich diet, with some carbohydrates so it's not too drastic. Then a short run mid week (3 or 4 miles- how nice!). Then lots of pasta, veg etc towards the end of the week with a little bit of protein. What we actually did in September was just eat solidly for a week. Which, I won't lie, was enjoyable, but not the best preparation. So we'll do it right this time and here's hoping for a PB to boost us as we then step it up another gear. Bring it on!
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