the pointy end

Three sleeps to go until the big race; yes I’m getting down to the pointy end now. I’m feeling strangely calm, almost serene, about the whole thing. Yes, I know it’s a long run, but hey, that’s for Sunday morning. It’ll sort itself out then.

I’ve done all the training I can possibly do, far more than ever before and at a higher quality. According to my online training log, I’ve done 5k more than I need to.

Morale boosting
As you might expect, there’s very little running scheduled for this week. What there is seems to be of the “run to stop myself going completely spare” type; a 4k run the day before the race is hardly going to do me much good.

Last night was supposed to be 9k easy. It worked out slightly longer, and probably slightly faster than ideal - 10k in 45 minutes, including hills. Not to worry, the morale-boosting was worth it. A very easy, fluent run. Not at all stressed or hard work. Nice long comfortable strides and a manageable heart-rate.

On the spur of the moment, I tacked on a steep-ish hill at the end of the run, always a sign I’m feeling in good form.

Shoes
I’ve made a decision on the whole shoes dilemma I alluded to recently. The new GTS7s have got the nod: the old faithful GTS6s have been relegated to the interchange bench. This is based on a couple of positive runs in the 7s over the past few days, and the weather forecast, which is supposed to be fine.

Pacing
As mentioned a little while ago, I do have a target time in mind for the race, but as they say in James Ellroy books, I’m keeping it on the down-low. What I have done is print out a race-pace-band from Runner’s World UK.

The target time is right in the middle of where I feel I should be. In an ideal world I might go faster; if I go a little slower I won’t be too unhappy. I’m not going to get too worked up about it though - it’s mainly just to make sure I don’t start out too fast.