![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Entry tags:
The Road to the London Marathon: 3 Weeks to Go.
I ran 20 miles again on Sunday and (again) it was mostly fine though I felt a bit wobbly afterwards. Jelly babies proved no better for my gut than gels, but I've decided they are distinctly more pleasant to eat and also they are jelly babies, so I've decided that jelly babies it is. B. has observed that I look considerably happier after running 20 miles, than I did after walking 20 miles last summer - however I suspect the key difference here is not that I'm running, but that I do not start the run with bad blisters and end it with worse blisters. We're planning to walk half the Ridgeway this summer and though no stretch is 20 miles, I am hoping to avoid blisters and then we can make some kind of sensible running/walking happiness comparison. It potentially would have been lovely weather for a run too, however I had staggered out of bed at an ungodly hour (made more ungodly by the time change) in order to be back from the run in time for a violin lesson - so I was actually running most of it through a rather chilly mist.
Having said I felt a bit wobbly afterwards, the wobbliness mostly resolved except for the ankle pain that has been plaguing me on and off since January. This continued through until Tuesday when I finally managed to organise myself to have a sports massage (and was told off by the masseuse for not religious icing the ankle after any run where I could feel it). The massage was perfectly pleasant but I always feel mildly bemused by massages - I certainly felt neither dramatically better nor dramatically worse after this one. The ankle felt better on Wednesday so I ran a cautious 35 minute easy run on it. However my feeling is that it is basically fine with any run of about an hour or less, but it really doesn't like the big long runs. There is only one of these left on the training plan (22 miles this Sunday) and I've decided to skip it - it seems stupid, having come this far, to risk some kind of overuse injury for the sake of one long run which probably won't make a huge difference to my performance on marathon day. I will run on Sunday. I haven't decided quite how far yet. I had bought myself a whole thick shell Hotel Chocolat easter egg on the grounds I would have calories to spare on Sunday. If I run a half marathon then I'll burn about 1000 calories which will make quite a dent on my Easter egg, but 10km would probably be safer ankle-wise - whatever, B. will probably have to help with the egg (oddly, he isn't that devastated by the prospect). My current plan is to practice the actual pace I intend to run at on marathon day and see how far I get, if I reach 6miles/10k/1 hour and feel OK then I'll carry on running but I'll definitely stop at 14 miles.
In other news, final instructions arrived!! This included the unwelcome information that the luggage lorries will only store items presented in an official London Marathon kit bag. You get the kit bag when you attend the Expo (which in my case will have to be the day before the marathon). B. has decided he won't be coming down on the Saturday with me, though he's still contemplating coming down on the Sunday. So my options seem to be to take a reasonable amount of stuff and leave it at the hotel (downside - the hotel is a 15 minute walk from the nearest tube and I'm not convinced I'll want to walk that after having run a marathon - though maybe B. would be able to collect from the hotel before meeting me at the finish?) or to make a guess at how much stuff can be fitted into an official London Marathon kit bag and take only that with me (this might be feasible, they must be big enough to include a change of clothes for big athletic young men and a change of clothes for me, pyjamas, sponge bag, an ebook reader and misc chargers shouldn't take up much more space than that. Of course, it will limit my ability to stock pile some vast amount of chocolate in the kit bag.)
KM run this week: 54.7
KM run in 2018: 502.1
While raising money for charity is not my motivation for participation, it is a big part of the London Marathon. Shelter have bribed me with a T-shirt and the promise of a post-race massage. People have been incredibly generous already, but you can donate here should you feel so inclined.
Having said I felt a bit wobbly afterwards, the wobbliness mostly resolved except for the ankle pain that has been plaguing me on and off since January. This continued through until Tuesday when I finally managed to organise myself to have a sports massage (and was told off by the masseuse for not religious icing the ankle after any run where I could feel it). The massage was perfectly pleasant but I always feel mildly bemused by massages - I certainly felt neither dramatically better nor dramatically worse after this one. The ankle felt better on Wednesday so I ran a cautious 35 minute easy run on it. However my feeling is that it is basically fine with any run of about an hour or less, but it really doesn't like the big long runs. There is only one of these left on the training plan (22 miles this Sunday) and I've decided to skip it - it seems stupid, having come this far, to risk some kind of overuse injury for the sake of one long run which probably won't make a huge difference to my performance on marathon day. I will run on Sunday. I haven't decided quite how far yet. I had bought myself a whole thick shell Hotel Chocolat easter egg on the grounds I would have calories to spare on Sunday. If I run a half marathon then I'll burn about 1000 calories which will make quite a dent on my Easter egg, but 10km would probably be safer ankle-wise - whatever, B. will probably have to help with the egg (oddly, he isn't that devastated by the prospect). My current plan is to practice the actual pace I intend to run at on marathon day and see how far I get, if I reach 6miles/10k/1 hour and feel OK then I'll carry on running but I'll definitely stop at 14 miles.
In other news, final instructions arrived!! This included the unwelcome information that the luggage lorries will only store items presented in an official London Marathon kit bag. You get the kit bag when you attend the Expo (which in my case will have to be the day before the marathon). B. has decided he won't be coming down on the Saturday with me, though he's still contemplating coming down on the Sunday. So my options seem to be to take a reasonable amount of stuff and leave it at the hotel (downside - the hotel is a 15 minute walk from the nearest tube and I'm not convinced I'll want to walk that after having run a marathon - though maybe B. would be able to collect from the hotel before meeting me at the finish?) or to make a guess at how much stuff can be fitted into an official London Marathon kit bag and take only that with me (this might be feasible, they must be big enough to include a change of clothes for big athletic young men and a change of clothes for me, pyjamas, sponge bag, an ebook reader and misc chargers shouldn't take up much more space than that. Of course, it will limit my ability to stock pile some vast amount of chocolate in the kit bag.)
KM run this week: 54.7
KM run in 2018: 502.1
While raising money for charity is not my motivation for participation, it is a big part of the London Marathon. Shelter have bribed me with a T-shirt and the promise of a post-race massage. People have been incredibly generous already, but you can donate here should you feel so inclined.