One last pre-weekend ‘recovery’ mile this morning…
…before a slow shakeout parkrun tomorrow morning and then the race on Sunday. I’m so excited about this race that I’m starting to wonder if my 2019 autumn running strategy was a bit of a mistake. For context: in 2017 and 2018 I ran my last races of the season in October and November respectively, meaning that I felt a bit burnt out after a long race season each time and ended up having a ‘winter running slump’ (i.e. six to eight weeks with no running at all) both years as a result. As such, I decided to end my 2019 race season with September’s Great North Run, in the hope that I would feel more refreshed and avoid the slump this winter.
This sort of semi-worked (I did have four weeks off between late November and late December, but that was due to a really bad cold rather than not wanting to run!). However, because this last six-month period has been my longest break between races in three years, I find that I’ve really built this race up in my head and am bouncing off the walls about it. I sort of wish I could calm down a bit, because I’m nervous about going out far too fast on Sunday now.
However, it will not be my last half marathon this year – I’ve got quite a few booked – so if for any reason it does all go wrong, I do have several more chances to get it right. It’d be so nice to have a good confidence-boosting PB going into the final stages of London Marathon training though!
After that nice gentle parkrun (Geth’s 100th!), we’ll be doing some shopping tomorrow 🙂
Today’s earworm playlist:
Justin Bieber – ‘Love Yourself’
Ram Jam – ‘Black Betty’