Last Week of Training

Well, it's around the corner now - the Royal Victoria Marathon is only a week away! Training has been quite an experience. Leading up to the race, I have to admit that I'm a little nervous. I have my good days and my bad when it comes to running. I've had a lot of time during the training runs to experiment with running styles, food, pace, music, and a whole gambit of variables. Coming up to the last week it's a matter of hydration, rest and nutrition at this point.

Our training runs were great, but a few of them were gruelling. We steadily increased our distances until we peaked at 38km. At that point, it's as much a matter of survival as it is conditioning. It felt good when we started to taper those back down. The weather was nice most of those days. Never any rain, but we did have some extremely hot and cold weather. On the 4 hour runs, it's almost impossible to avoid getting caught in temperatures hovering around 30 degrees Celsius. We learned quickly that lack of hydration will almost always knock you on your ass. Thank goodness for a little something called Muscle Melt. GP Holisitic Health sells these epsom salts infused with essential oils that do wonders for your muscles after you're finished torturing them.

The goal now is to make sure we stay healthy before we leave on Friday. The chilly weather along with cold and flu season, don't make that task too easy. Tried running on Saturday, but 3 degrees Celsius with a stiff wind was a big deterrent. Still managed to get 11km before needing to get out of the cold. I had images of catching the sniffles this week and spoiling months of training. This week, I just want to eat healthy, stay really strict on the no alcohol policy and keep the exercise to a minimum. From there, I just have to hope that the training will take over and I'll survive my first marathon. I'm not putting any pressure on myself by setting time goals or anything like that. My goal is to finish and still be walking afterwards. Wish me luck.