Dublin Marathon Training: Taper time!!!

I'm sooooo excited to be tapering! This was the first week of training when I just felt "I'm ready to be done."
Despite that I had a solid rest of week's training.

Thursday was a 7 miler with a friend a bit faster than it should have been (8:30 average) but happened by accident as we were chatting away nineteen to the dozen. Friday was a rest day which was good as I had a million real-life things to catch up on and then my parents paid us a surprise visit.
Which was lovely but I had planned on staying off the vino and the dinner out put paid to that. (They forced my mouth open and poured wine down my throat obviously. Those assholes!!)

The ensuing mild hangover and the fact that they didn't leave until after lunch on Saturday meant my 10 miler at PMP was later than planned but I'm guessing this just enhanced the handicapping effect it's supposed to have on my 21 miler today. Which is the point really so extra bonus points...I win at making things harder for myself! A fact that everyone who knows me well is already very aware of.

The 21 miler went amazing. I had planned 10 easy pace and then the rest at a comfortable cruising pace that felt like I could still have chatted at and I could eat and drink at. I wore the same shorts, socks and shoes I intend to wear on race day and took 3 gels. One as I was leaving the house, one at 5-6 miles (takes me ages to drink the buggers!) and one from 12-15(seriously...ages!)

I also took two of these guys as GI issues have caused me to avoid gels in the past. I still brought TP just in case.

God bless modern medicine!

Anyway all was well on the gut front so will be repeating that on race day and bringing a couple of extra for good measure.

Splits were:
9:49
9:46
9:46
9:03
9:12
9:20
9:00
9:23
9:13
8:47
8:30
8:38
8:32
8:26
8:39
8:19
8:25
8:21
8:24
8:22
8:16

I felt really good throughout and was quite impressed with myself that I ran around the car park a few times at the end to make it 21. If I had felt tired I would certainly have called 20.7 good enough and dodged inside to tackle the three flights of stairs to the apartment. I could definitely have done another 5.2 miles. Could I have done them if my first few miles weren't easy? I don't know.

For that reason and from information I've gotten on boards.ie I'm planning on going out with the 3:50 pacers and sticking with them the first 10 miles.....so that's 8.47 pace (but I'd say they will be more like 8:40 to allow a bit of a cushion for extra distance etc.)

Then I'm hoping to get onto 8:30 pace if all is well and push that in to mile 22. After 22 most of the hills are over and I can try to take advantage of the downhills to maintain/increase my speed.

Well that's the plan anyway. Today. Ask me again tomorrow!