11 weeks, 60 miles and a light at the end of the tunnel

This was my penultimate recovery week before my taper starts in the middle of September. I covered 30 miles midweek and another 30 split in 2 sessions this morning. The midweek stuff consisted of 4 laps of 7.5 miles across Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday. I only had one 4.15am get up before being at work which I think was wise. I find when I’m on a recovery week, doing all of my running with early starts doesn’t mean I have the same benefits of when I catch up on sleep a bit more.

Today’s efforts consisted of 2 laps at 4.15am of 7.5 miles then a short break for taking my wife to the gym followed by 2 more laps. The weather was starkly different as the day got on. I was quite happy that despite Strava losing me for the best part of 6 miles on my last lap, the pace for my first session and my second were virtually identical.

I have one more recovery week planned in week 4 of the next 6, my mileage will hopefully rise from 75 miles gradually to 105 miles in my longest training week, before a 4 week taper leads me into the race. This feels a lot closer now than it did a few months ago.

When I first started writing this blog in 2014, I used a Bill Parcells NFL quote that I’d only heard half of it. Luckily I stumbled across the rest of it this week, hopefully in 6 weeks time I’ll have given myself plenty of demonstrated ability.