Well it's under two weeks before I set out on my first Marathon and the first part of my Worcestershire Triple. This close to the event I am in what is known by pros as the taper - a period ahead of the event when the training eases off in preparation for the big event.
For us rank amateurs of course it is just a period of blessed relief when we can justify cutting the training mileage down and keep eating in the name of carbo-loading.
For my last long run I decided to have a go round the Worcester Marathon course. Or least one lap including the "extra loop" that the Marathon runners have to do.
The race is to start at Sixways (home of the Worcester Warriors Rugby Club) and knowing that the Warriors had played away on the Friday (at Leicester Tigers where they were thrashed), I expected a quiet morning run. Wrong. Very Wrong. The place was heaving with a junior rugby tournament.
Take 2. Scurrying up a nearby lane and parking in a convenient lay-by, I started the run a few hundred metres down stream, so-to-speak. Map in hand I set off alongside the Worcester-Birmingham canal and then up Smite Hill, Climet's Hill, Huddington Hill, past Hill Court, up Neight Hill and on, up, to Goosehill Green.
Mmmmm. Something about this route was beginning to niggle. What could it be? Could it be all those places with the word hill in their name? I think the usual euphemism is "undulating" but who are they kidding. The route is rollercoaster lumpy and then there is need to do two laps. And the second lap has an extra loop making it longer than the first lap. That is just plain sadistic.
At this point all my long training runs of up 21 miles in the countryside in the Severn Valley seemed a tad in-sufficient in the face a 16 mile lap of incessant undulations. Even the bridge over the canal near the end of the lap goes up and down at an obscene gradient guaranteed to trigger cramp 23 miles in.
So now I know what's in store in just over 10 days time. Until last Sunday, I thought I was ready. Now I'm not so sure. But too late now so the taper will continue ready for the big day on April 15th.
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