STOP! Taper time.....

Ha! You see what I've done here?

Been a bit slack on the ode blog I'm afraid, so I'm gonna try and remember what we've been up to since last time I wrote.  Ok, so on Sunday we did our last long run before the race.  We decided on the Greenway for this one because it is fairly flat and my legs have started to refuse to work properly at the very sight of an incline!

We got an early start again and set off around 9am.  I say the Greenway is flat but there is definitely a steady incline all the way to the top.  I was still riding on the back of my recent new found form and didn't find the first couple of laps too bad.  It was a beautiful, warm sunny day as we ticked off the miles.  We got to the 16.5 mile marker at the point where we had left the car and I tried to forget that we still had another 6 miles to go (the last 3 up hill).  By the time we got to 20 miles I began to feel a bit wobbly bob and part of me wished that I would be savaged by one of the many dogs we past, so that I had a good excuse to stop! We both dug deep to get to the end and I for one was completed wasted when I got to the car. The Snickers that I ate straight afterwards barely even registered and I spent the journey home rocking back and forth with shooting pains in my thighs! I actually couldn't wait to get home and jump in an ice bath! Sad......but true.  I'm not worried about feeling like utter crap after this because we only had 500ml of water between 2 of us (idiotic I know). On the day there will be water stations at every mile to keep us hydrated and..... AND we will be rested and not running on tired legs like we have been for weeks. I felt relieved that we'd put all the hard work in, time to put the brakes on now.

Monday was rest day this week, on Tuesday we tested our legs and did a quick 4 miler.  On Wednesday we were supposed to do 8 miles but ended up doing closer to 10! Thursday was club night and in a moment of madness we agreed to go off-road.  We were mislead into believing that most of the 7.5 mile run would be on tracks.  Oh there were some tracks but there were also overgrown fields with pot holes, stiles and barbed wire, all with the potential to end months of training with a single ankle turn or severed artery (from the barbed wire!) I was probably overly catious and tip toed through the fields like a wimpy girl and a face like a smacked arse.  It wasn't all bad though because we got a good 3 mile downhill blast on the Greenway at the end.

By Friday we had got some miles in the bank, so we only had 10 miles to get through to reach our weekly total.  We had only had one day of rest since our 22.5 miler on Sunday and it took it's toll after just 5 miles at which point we we turned to each other and agreed that it would be wise to sack it off.  In fairness to both of us we probably could have got round, but at what cost?

Then for the first time in a long time we had the whole weekend off and went to the pub all day, now that's hardcore kids!!