Taper time!!
After completing my last big day of training, I now enter my taper. I still have a few medium sized sessions later this week, however my big stuff is well and truly behind me.
This of course brings me to the next situation: The race is Saturday week (Hawaii Time). Something that was so far away, it is so close now, so so close. The realisation that I am here training for such a significant event has now dawned on me.
My last big run was yesterday and I was a little concerned about getting through this after my ride the day before (it is funny how much of a mental game this sport is). So, with heavy legs and doubt in my mind I headed from my apartment up to the Queen K to run the energy lab. This would be my first time running the lab and something that I hoped that wasn't too intimidating.
Another thing with the training here, you really have to be mindful about how much nutrition/hydration you take with you and when you fill up as there are not many places that are available. So if you miscalculate, things can go horribly wrong! FAST! With that in mind, I was a little cautious about taking on too much nutrition early until I established where the "feed zones" would be for me.
Getting out to the energy lab, I only really noticed one potential place that I could stop, a petrol station, which could be a little too far for the return to get there without any other hydration. Heading down into the energy lab (which I didn't realise was 3k each way!) I was still on the look out for somewhere to fill up. By this stage I was 1hr 10min into my run and starting to get stuck into what I had in my fuel belt.
Going around the bottom corner, I noticed a public toilet. Beauty, that's where I can top up my bottles and keep going. By the time I would get to the turnaround point and back would be another 2-3 k's. Perfect. I made sure that I really got filled up my body with nutrition & hydration so that I would have a fresh full load on the return run. (I knew where my next stop would be!)
Topped up and off I went. The energy lab wasn't too intimidating this time (I didn't do a monster bike ride in the conditions prior either!) and I was back out on the Queen K heading back. A few calculations and I knew that I would have to run passed my apartment (which I hate doing) to make up the full time.
Re-fuelling at a local park was the next stop and as the run went on, my legs felt better and better. I managed to find my comfortable pace being around the 4min 30 k pace, something that I would definitely take race day! This session was a massive turnaround for my confidence as at least I know my run legs are still there.
My session is below:
The afternoon session was another 30min easy run. Easy was never going to be in the equation, running 35k in the morning was always going to make the 30min run in the afternoon tough. My legs felt heavy and ugly and I really struggled to run 5min k pace for the first few minutes, not long after that I was down to the 4min 30's again and feeling good.
I would like to thank my run legs for re-installing some confidence in the training I have put into them and just hope that they talk to my ride legs and give them the same strength come race day.
The agenda for the next 2 days is rest and just rest. I might have a few little ocean swims to keep my feel in the water and enjoy the weather.
Wednesday gives me the opportunity to test my ride legs out again and one that I am hoping for not just a good ride, but a GREAT ride.
For now...
X-Man
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