One week to go to MARATHON #2 !!!!

So then, this time next week I will be contemplating the fact I've done 2 marathons back to back. I think this should be achievable relatively easily. I've done a Half and Marathon on consecutive days at Disney. That was for the sheer nuttiness of the place and the medal bling. Earlier on in the year I did the Rhayader 20 on a Saturday in March, and the Ashby 20 on the Sunday (free hoodie and packed lunch after Ashby would have been rude not to) . So back to back Marathons, even hilly ones should be OK on paper. That is how my brain deals with that one.

Next Friday I will be running here:

http://www.extremenorthevents.com/images/uploads/documents/2012-Quadrathon-Day-2.pdf


And this is the course profile (gradients):

Quad day 2 course gradients - first and second half

So a bit of an uphill start and a bit of a pimple at 17 miles, other than that hopefully I'll be feeling OK.

Today’s topic for obsession: The WEATHER

I used to say to people "You know it's amazing the amount of hours I've spent out running, and the amount of times I've got soaked to the skin I can still count on one hand". That was until springtime this year. Now I haven't just run out of fingers and toes but I’ve actually lost count (although I do log the weather conditions for each run so if I wanted to I could probably tell you.) It seems now, pretty much every time I think about going out of the door it starts to rain. So I wait a bit, it brightens up, I go out and then it pisses down on me anyway. One particularly vile run saw me walking back up the stairs at work with my trainers squelching and water actually running out of my shorts down my legs.

During the Quad training I've tried to go out at a number of different times of day / conditions. There is obviously a slim chance that some of the event days might be in a 30 degree heat wave so I've been out in the midday sun in the small heat waves that we have had. I've been out when it has been blowing a gale and I've been out when it has been chucking it down so much that water is flowing down hills like a river, with popped up drain covers sprouting fountains of water everywhere.

I think overall I prefer cloud + a little drizzle, hopefully anything extreme won't be a problem.

I did learn a valuable lesson in the Lake District a few months ago. I was up at V's for a weekend of cow watching, ice cream eating and dog cuddling and had to go out for a long run. So off I went in the pouring rain, for a 15 miler, but as I came back up the road to hers soaked to the skin I felt a pain at well - no other way of describing it, the lower part of my back / top of my arse crack. Because I'd stuffed a load of crap in the back pocket of my shorts, and they had got weighed down with the water some of my seams had rubbed a huge patch of skin raw through my them.  Getting in the shower - well I actually almost fainted with the stinging and doing a long run the next day would have been tricky – thank goodness it was a rest day because sitting down was actually fairly difficult.  A few weeks later at the physio the scars were still there - he had to question whether I had been leading a more interesting social life than I let on.

What to do then? Well every runner’s friend, VASELINE. As it happens one of my anti blister strategies is to Vaseline my feet before a run. That with a combination of Nike Triaxes and very thin socks means I never get any foot blisters. So rest assured I will be Vaseline-ing any bits where I believe seams will rub if the forecast looks dodgy. Grim but true. I'm not going through that pain again!

What more do you need. More on GU at a later date

I've started looking at the forecast for the area around Londonderry and at the moment it looks fairly cool and showery, but that only goes up until next Tuesday. I think it is safe to say I will be checking again. Several times a day.

Today saw an easy lunchtime 9 miler which was very nice, despite getting rained on again. Took in the hilly Ashton Court grounds, and the turnaround point was the middle of the Clifton Suspension bridge. I thought on the way back “this will be the last run in Bristol for a while”. That is how everything feels. “This will be the last time I do X before  the Quad”, “This is the last time I will see person Y before the Quad” .Feels strange winding down, even stranger that I consider a 4 day block of 10/9/8/7 to be a wind down - all distances that I used to consider a long run. How life changes!