London 2011 here I come - hopefully! by karobinson

Can't believe there is only one week left before I will be in London running the furthest I have ever done in my life - what was I thinking?!  I'm so nervous & I'm hoping all this training has been enough, but I've had enough now & can't wait for it all to be over.

Back to my training.  I managed a threshold run on Friday 5 x 3min with 90 sec recovery.  Even though it was only 3 minutes, they felt much tougher than the 5 min thresholds, but at least that's another one out the way.  I was on my own this time & warmed up enroute to Elles Road, Farnborough along the perimeter of Farnborough Airfield to use the wide cycle path for my threshold.  Got beeped at by white van man! & then walked part of the way home before breaking into an easy pace.  My leg is much better & the swelling has gone down but there is still a very tender area just below my kneecap which was feeling uncomfortable while running.  Hopefully everything will have healed up in time for London.

Joined the Bridge Club at the canal on Saturday.  My program was for 70 min easy pace, so I ran the short 2.5 mile loop along the towpath to Broad Oak then back along Sprats Hatch Lane to the Barley Mow where some more joined us.  Then it was the 3.5 loop towards Crookham Wharf, coming off to run around Tundry Pond before rejoining the canal at Broad Oak & running back to the Barley Mow.  All in all it took about 73 minutes, perfect.

Since I now had my charity vest I tried it out with my other kit I was planning to wear on marathon day for my last long run.  My daughter is now home from uni so she took some photos of me when I got back.  It's a man's vest so the fit isn't good & I'm wearing it over a t-shirt, just hope the weather for London is cooler than it has been.

Today I decided to go to the gym for the first time in ages.  I had planned to go weekly to work on my core, but our car disasters & looking for a replacement on the weekends put paid to that.  Anyway, warmed up for about 10 min on the crosstrainer & then did some lower body, leg & core stability exercises, probably a bit late to do much good now though!

The primary finish volunteers have now got their jobs allocated for the day & my training buddy Lenny hasn't been selected this year.  She was so disappointed not to be there when I finished & I'm disappointed that she won't be there either, she has been so supportive throughout this, it won't be the same without her.

I still have a few more sessions to do next week including another threshold run, only 2 x 5 min this time, & nothing more than 30 min then I will be on the coach at the unearthly hour of 6am next Sunday morning ready for the most amazing experience of my life!

Happy tapering

Karen