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RE: The Road To Richmond - 2018
Week 13 of 18
Another 3 miles on the Tickle clock this morning as part of a 14 mile long run. Managed to get into a good rhythm - starting to get that synchronicity between man and... er, Mr Man. I ditched the internal harness, which does mean he bounces around a bit, but it does mean I can go shirtless inside the costume, which is a big improvement temperature-wise. The whack in the back of the head issue has been solved by stitching a bit of towelling to the offending hard bit. Although I notice that my stitching is already coming undone - might need to employ the services of an expert there. Hydration is now provided by a length of homebrew syphon tube sourced from eBay, pushed into a water bottle which I can refill at water stations. A DIY Camelbak, in effect.
Each of the miles came in a little under 11:15, a bit slower than I was hoping, but there's a limit to what I can do about that. 11:15 would bring me in at 4:55 - perfect - but I reckon I will spend about 10 minutes at water stations, and let's face it, I'm not going to sustain that pace all the way through. However, I must remain determined to finish as close to 5 hours as I can, so the goal, tough as it is, will still be to crank out each mile in 11 mins.
The biggest worry was that the remaining 10 miles of my step-back long run felt really hard. By the end I was fist-pumping along to my long-run feel-good soundtrack for all that I was worth, in an attempt to channel the latter stages of previous marathons. This should not be happening after 14 miles. So the concern is that a mere 3 miles in costume had really taken it out of me. But again, there's not much I can do there, except make sure I don't skimp on the remaining training, and push myself hard in the speed sessions. I may also look into a better way of taking on in-race calories than the tried and tested jelly babies. At such a slow pace, stomach churn won't be much of an issue, so perhaps a couple of rounds of peanut butter sandwiches in race might give me a boost...
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The Road To Richmond - 2018
