It was absolutely right for me in this marathon training block to take a five-week taper rather than the standard three-week one, but it has certainly given me a lot more time to worry about the race. I’m worried about various issues with my legs and feet and how they’ll hold up on the day; I’m worried about various logistics around the weekend; I’m worried I’ll have blown my stamina by tapering too early… Objectively I know it’s likely to be absolutely fine (though of course it will be tough), but I can’t stop thinking about all the things that could go wrong. One of the things that I am most looking forward to in October is NOT worrying about all this stuff anymore. I’ll be taking three months to enjoy running a bit more aimlessly before the next marathon training block starts in January. (In the future I am only going to do one marathon training block at most within a twelve-month period, but pandemic rescheduling has meant that I’ll be doing Edinburgh Marathon about eight months after London. I’ll be glad to settle into a more regular schedule of exploring different spring marathons going forward!)
With one week to go, it is also getting so close now that I am quite excited about the non-scary parts of our trip to London. Geth and I have identified a nice Italian restaurant for carb-loading, are planning some interesting routes for short runs, and will be choosing a non-challenging new parkrun to visit the day before the race. It’s all coming together… I just hope that the marathon itself will be (at least mostly) a good experience!
