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At last…the taper!

I completed my last 20 miler yesterday and now I’m really glad it’s tapering time!

We’ve had lots and lots of spring rain for the last two weeks or so so it was really great to wake up and see blue sky for once.  My wife and I left home at about 6:30 AM and did a nice gentle loop through Cornwall Park and then headed towards the Auckland Domain. As you can see it was a beautiful morning running through the park:

We then ran along the coast until my wife reached her turnoff towards home.  She did her longest run yet (very exciting) at 21.5km which is her first run that is longer than her half marathon distance.  I’m very proud of her accomplishment.  I’m also more than a little worried that she’s going to smoke my inaugral half marathon time!

I took quite a while to get into my groove on this run.  It was only after about 5km that I felt comfortable and running became effortless.  I suspect this is because I had to skip two of my midweek runs this week so the legs needed a bit more warming up than usual.  On Tuesday I was at work bright and early and didn’t get home till about 9:30 pm due to having to attend Graduation (as a staff member not a graduand) at The University of Auckland where I work.  On Wednesday I was at work bright and early as well and once more didn’t get home till about 9:30 pm as I was MCing a competition finals.  So work has been pretty full on and running has had to take a backseat.

The next 20 or so km of the run were quite nice but I have to admit that I struggled somewhat with the last 5-6 km.  My pace slowed somewhat and I stopped for a few water breaks along the way.  It was one of those runs where you start to question why you want to run a marathon but I think this is normal.  I seem to recall thinking this before my last marathon as well.  Nevertheless, I was very glad to see this sign which I normally see at the end of every long run:

Overall, just over 32km in just over 3:23:00.  I could have done it faster if Ihad focused a bit more but it’s supposed to be a long slow run so I took it slow!

One of the things that I’ve quite enjoyed is that I’ve sort of built up a cameraderie with a whole bunch of fellow runners.  Every Sunday morning I tend to bump into the same folks at different spots and we’ve all started to recognise each other.  That little nod you give to your fellow runners as you go by has that little bit more meaning and tends to be followed by a cheery smile. :)

That’s my last 20 miler of this training cycle and I’m now officially into the taper. I thought it would never get here.  20 days to go to the marathon!

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This entry was posted on Monday, October 12th, 2009 at 5:20 am and is filed under Marathon Training, running. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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