For Whom Bournemouth Tolls

So I think it has been over a month since I have made a post, and this in turn throws out the intention of my last post- namely to post more consistently around once or every two weeks. However I have been very busy over the last month, so my lack of writing has not been in vain. I successfully completed the National Three Peaks Challenge, upped my mileage before the Bournemouth Marathon, recovered from injury, started a new job, replaced my Brooks Ghost 7s and ran the Ealing Half Marathon. So it has been a packed month between August/September to say the least. Being this busy has taught me the importance of thinking through what my blog posts should be about and keeping the word count well below 1,000 words.

The most important thing for me right now is to focus on the Bournemouth Marathon this weekend. My race strategy is to have the same pace that I ran Brighton at, which was a pace of 6:50 minute per mile.  Therefore keep a conservative pace- compared to my tempo running in training- for the first half of the marathon. Then at mile 13 to see how I feel and then assess whether I should stay at the same pace or maybe go slightly quicker. The challenge with Bournemouth is that there is a small hill at around mile 8, with two relatively large hills at 13 as well as 18. The trick will be not to run the hills too quickly and have the confidence to know that the time I lose going up on the hill will be made up by my pace going down the hill. Another factor during the race will be the weather. At the moment the day looks to be at an okay temperature and there doesn’t look to be any rain, so no worries there. The main challenge I anticipate is the wind, because at some point I will be running into it, but again I will just have to treat it like the hills and be confident not to waste any energy trying to play catch-up or place any unnecessary stress on myself.

In terms of preparation I feel confident, though at the same time I won’t take anything for granted. I watched the rowing world championships (a while ago) and one of the things a competitor said was to focus on being like a race horse. This means that I focus on running my own race and not getting sucked into anyone else’s game plan. Also sticking with my race strategy and not getting carried away with the race day atmosphere. That I am starting in the good for age pen and hopefully should not get caught up with the main body of runners taking part in the marathon. Most important of all is to just enjoy the day and soak in the fact that this is my fourth marathon!

I will see you on the other side and will hopefully post about this as soon as possible. Also I will get my story up about doing the National Three Peaks Challenge as well. In the meantime GOOD LUCK TO ALL THE RUNNERS TAKING PART IN OCTOBER MARATHONS!!!