TAPER REST TAPER

Yes I'm swearing at all you runners out there, but sometimes you just have to swear I mean rest!!!
So the training is done and now all I have to do is get to the start line on time. For Winelands that is easier said than done, as the start time is 05h30 and with the start out in Stellenbosch some 40min drive away I have an early morning on race day.
So how are things looking for marathon number 58, and the fist for 2010? I could tell you that I feel great and am ready to take on the world, but is that really true? The diary doesn't lie, so we had better have a look...

The year started off well and by June I was looking at running a couple of good times for the year, but an injury knocked me back. July was a write-off and as things were coming right in August, but it wasn't till September that my body let me get training again...
With not much of a base I started training in all earnest on the 4th of October with a week of 90.5km followed by a 95.5km week. After all that training I needed to rest so I took 2 days off and ran a windy 10km race in 35:39. With a long mountain run on the weekend I call it a rest week and logged only 61km.
Now with 4 weeks to race day I had to up the miles and effort. I managed 2 weeks of 100km before I cut a little of the distance only running 70km last week. So we have 4 weeks of what could be enough running, and plenty of sessions and a couple of long runs (2 x 30km 1 x 27km a hard 25km and 3 half's at sub 80 pace).
I've run a hard 10km and a hard half both of which convert to a 2h44 marathon. I don't want a 2h45 I would like a 2h39:59, so that is what I'm aiming at.
The plan is go out at a little faster than race pace 3:40's for the 1st 5k before the hill... I hope that doesn't do me in, but I'm going to need those seconds come the last couple of km. I've run this race 7 times twice helping friends to dip under 3hours and twice in 2h39. So I've looked at the splits and looked at the splits, and looked at the splits. I've converted the 2h59's to 2h39's and looked at those splits.

So what is the long and short of what my log book is telling me... 21.1km bang on time, than down the R44 to Somerset West I think I'll lose a couple of seconds, but will still be on time. Over the bridge and back. I think the road is going to get long, and that last hill at 36km will take to much out of me and I will end up short, maybe running that 2h44 that the conversion table all are telling me.

Come Saturday all that goes out the window and it's then up to the man on the road, the weather, and the competition.