4/8/10

Thursday’s Training – Am: 4*2 mile with 4 mins rec. 9.40, 9.37, 9.34, 9.25 Pm: 59 mins easy

Mileage – 25 Miles

I hadn’t realised until I was going to bed last night that Greg had texted me to say that we would be going down to Sedona for the workout as the weather was supposed to be decent and there were a bunch of others doing a workout there also. I was relieved about this as I was going to have to do the session on Trina’s loop and it can get pretty monotonous. I then remembered that instead of doing two big loops for each rep I would now be doing 8 laps of the track for each rep! After all the marathon training I have been doing my mind has adapted to this and 10 mins of running really isn’t too boring. I met up with Martin at 8am and we headed down to Sedona and met the others at the track. We warmed up with Brett and then headed down to the track to get on with our drills and strides. Brett and Martin were running 2*2miles and the 2*1 mile so I thought I would maybe have some company for my 4*2 mile but they were to run much faster than I was so they started their workout while I finished of getting ready. Greg didn’t want the session to feel that hard and wanted me to be relaxed the whole way so he just wanted me to run 4.50 miles with the option of picking it up on the last rep. I was pretty tired when I woke up this morning but I felt fine once I got running and the pace felt pretty easy so that was a good sign as the last week of training has been pretty intense (3 workouts in the last 5 days with another big one set for Sunday). Getting through the first 2 reps was fine but after that was when I changed my mindset and started to imagine the London course and how I want to feel at specific points. I know it will start to feel hard on the later stages of the race so I pictured myself relaxing and feeling strong as I passed the 22 mile mark. On the last rep I was aerobically fine but my legs were starting to feel a little more tired as I picked up the pace. I could see myself running down Birdcage Walk and then turning onto The Mall and running fast down the last 200m of the race. It was good to finish after 32 laps of the track. The one thing that made a difference today was the weather. There was only a slight wind but the temperature was up so it felt good to get some rays on the skin and not having a cold wind whipping through my body. I had a quick word with Greg about the workout on Sunday (we will have to assess how I feel before I do it and really listen to my body to see if it recovered enough to hit a long hard tempo again) and then joined the guys on the warm down. I finished up and got some stretching done and then we headed back up the road. Just as I was digging into some food, Mark Woods called me from Scotland for an interview for Sunday’s paper (I think Scotland on Sunday) and then I tried to sleep. No success! For the life of me I couldn’t get to sleep so I just lay down to give my legs a rest before my next run.

I also got the good news from my mum that the custom made Oakley’s that Oakley were making for me had arrived so I would be picking them up from her once I get back to Scotland. I am leaving for Scotland on Sunday and will be in Edinburgh for a couple of days before I head to St Andrews to stay at Ronnie’s house so I can just focus on getting over jet lag and getting my final preparations done before the race. I will be heading down to London on the Thursday before the race and will be doing some press obligations on the Friday as well as making an appearance at the Mizuno stand at the marathon expo.

I had booked a massage for 6pm so I headed out the door at 4.30pm and went up to Buffalo again and got 3 laps done and headed back down the trail to finish off 10 miles. It wasn’t without incident though. With about a mile to go, a young couple were running with their dog off the leash (a fully grown boxer) and the moment the dog spotted me, it headed straight for me at a full sprint. Luckily I have had to deal with this kind of situation before and I have no problem hurting a dog before it gets a chance to take lumps out of me. I ran hard towards the dog and jumped right in its face right before it started to jump and I pushed it onto its side. It then growled and came back at me, which just prompted me to give it a swift kick in the head. Job done…the dog ran off. It didn’t stop the girl from screaming at me about how the dog is friendly and it would have never hurt me. I reminded her that it charged at me and just headed off the trail. I think her boyfriend knew I did the right thing as he grabbed his girlfriend and told her to calm down. I just didn't want to run the marathon with half a calf! Anyway, I got back in just under an hour and headed straight into the house as I needed to head over to the other side of town to get a massage. I had the time to write a note to Julie to tell her I would take her out for dinner and then jumped into the car. My legs felt ok but my calves were a little tight and my glutes were still a little locked up so I asked the lady to concentrate on those. Once I got out I headed over and bought Julie some flowers and then headed back to the apartment to pick her up. She was all dressed up and looking great so we drove over to Black Bart’s Steakhouse and had a great meal. I wanted to take her out as this was going to be our last night alone together before I head back over to the UK for a fortnight. All in all, it was great night and we had a really nice time. We are heading down to Phoenix tomorrow to stay at Julie’s parent’s house until Sunday as both her grand mothers are in town.