10 Weeks to go, a wasted camelbak of nuun cola and a new PB for distance covered outside of races in a day

This week was a lot better than previous weeks. I did 17 miles midweek and could afford a day off before my long run today. Following advice from my cousin Kerry, I had ordered a packet of nuun electrolyte tablets and put the last of them in my camelbak yesterday. Unfortunately when I woke up the pouch had leaked so I had very little left. This was never going to be more than am inconvenience though. It’s not like Pheidippedes had any sports nutrition in his fabled run.

I decided to do the first 10 miles in the woods before the gym opened and then complete the other 24 there. This was the more sensible option as I didn’t have the patience to try to fix my pack at 5am. I’m not a morning person at the best of times and this was my 2nd night on less than 6hrs sleep.

I had the woods to myself for the duration of the first part of my run. This was a blessing in disguise as a lot of the nettles had overgrown and I seem to have become someone who will just get stung when people don’t move out of my way!
The pace I ran at coincided well with the gyms opening and I managed to get there just before so I could get a treadmill tucked away in a corner. The remaining 24 were a lot more tolerable than my previous outings in the woods and I put a 4% hill of 400m in each mile so I didn’t feel I was cheating myself. Once I had settled into a pace I could switch off and still remember to include the hill.

I had been listening to an audiobook about the cyclist Lance Armstrong called Cycle of Lies by Juliet Macur this week. I have always bought into the “miracle” story and having read his autobiography several times, some of the myths are proving quite hard to attempt to unlearn. One of the quotes from the film The Armstrong Lie came back to me as I was running which really helped.

It’s not the same on paper but the gist of it was that he had his training (legal or not) and subsequent power output so precise that if he didn’t fall off the bike or crash he knew he’d win. Anyone who has seen him be interviewed can imagine the conviction with which he believed this.

I set my goal of the 44 mile Skiddaw race as a purely binary goal based on finishing regardless of time. While it was harder to set my pace in the woods, on the treadmill it was a similar situation to Lance’s (but at a ridiculously slower pace!) As long as i didn’t fall off and regardless of how discomforting it was at times, I knew I’d finish in my target time. Whatever else Lance loses financially, noone can take that level of confidence from him. If I can channel half of that going up Skiddaw, I’m sure I’ll finish the race.