A funny kind of week

I have been all over the place this week. It started on Sunday when I took part in my first time trial of the season, the SCCU 25. Having been battered to bits the week before and with hardly any miles in the tank I knew that I could not expect very much and I approached it purely as a training ride. I started steady and stayed that way throughout. The last couple of miles were tough, riding into a direct headwind that had tears streaming from my eyes and the bike crawling along with barely any forward movement. My time of 1:11xx was a personal worst by quite a long way and I was a long way down the leaderboard. I've got to say that without the pressure of feeling that I had to do well I really enjoyed myself.

The next evening I went out for a paddle and a run. The paddle was in a llance for 45 minutes and i did a few fartlek efforts of approximately 3 minutes' duration. The last 10 minutes was a steady paddle to warm down. I had the river all to myself except for literally dozens of bats; great fun. I finished it off with a slow, easy 40 minute run into Teddington and back. I felt pretty comfortable and my back seems fully healed up. Happy days. Until, that is I got home and saw the news about the Boston Marathon, which prompted my last post. I just felt straight away that I should try to run the London Marathon as a mark of solidarity and respect. I know it's only a small thing but it's something I can do. So I'll do it. That's not to say I am not a little bit concerned as I know from past experience how far 26 miles is, but what's keeping me going is the fact that before my back stopped me I was in better running shape than I had been for years and had comfortably run 21 miles. My plan is to go out at 4 hour pace and see how it goes. If I'm feeling ok at 20 then I'll see if I can up the pace a bit, but ultimately my achievement will be to finish the race, enjoy the experience and show my respect for the people of the running community effected by the events of last week.

As if this was not going to be hard enough, there has been a slight fly in the ointment. Once again I have been fighting something off. I think it's more to do with being stressed at work and home but achy eyeballs and extreme tiredness have been the tell-tale signs, so I have been over-loading with vit-C  and getting early nights.

I will report back on how well an eight week, no running taper with excessive carbo-loading works next week.