Training wrapup

With only a week to go to Wineglass you can hardly call the running I'm doing lately as training but it's still miles on the road and some gentle reminders to the body not to get too lazy.

The work has been done weeks or even months ago and so any running done this week will be mainly to keep my alter ego, Evil Runner, happy. When in heavy training it was always ER who was the 1st to complain and whine about the workouts, early mornings, mid-week runs, the weather, you name it. And now that we're slacking back for the taper, you know who's the 1st to start 2nd guessing and want get one more hard session in, etc well it's ER again! I know he's determined to sabotage me one way or the other and I'll have to tread very carefully and remember that less is better in all things for the next 7 days (except for rest, stress and sleep).

Quick recap of the last few days. Easy 5 mile runs on Friday and Saturday around 8:10 pace with a few strides to stretch the legs out. Feeling good but not great, no spring in my step yet. Total for the past week was 50 miles with an average pace of 8:03.

Today's last short-long run was 13 miles here at home (alone) in 1:45 with a few stops to check on a friends' cats and to refuel my drinks. Finished off the last 4 miles of the run with a mini-progression to mimic my plan for the marathon start with splits of 7:58, 7:49, 7:39 and 7:23. These paces all felt very comfortable and in my easy aerobic range except for the 1st 1/2 mile of the last one due to a continuous uphill climb. The elevation profile of Wineglass with it's gradual downhills should be very conducive to even pacing and so I'm not worried, yet.

Looking forward to seeing Marc again and travelling down with Andrew next weekend. We'll just try not to bore poor Jo to death with all our running talk on the long drive to Corning.

Taper on!