Countdown Continues - 3 weeks to go....

If you are around Clapham and see someone displaying slightly strange behaviour, it is most likely to be me. With three weeks to go until the Marathon Des Sable, my kit sorted and my bag packed it is time to start the final preparation.

How do you make final preparations for to 155 mile run in 55 deg heat across a sandy desert? To be totally honest, I am not quite sure.

I have a few cunning ideas. Firstly, I am going on a diet, I want to be 8kg lighter than the London UntraMarathon in Feb and 6kg lighter than when I ran the Berlin Marathon in September, 6kg is the weight of my kit, so loosing the weight in my mind balances things out.  Fat will also acts as insulation and increase my core temperature so a 5-6% body fat would be grand. I love eating and love my cakes; this is going to require some self discipline when the custard slices and donuts stare at me in Sainsbury at lunch time.

I have started moisturising my feet, I could only find face moisturiser, is there any difference? I going to run up and down my road bare foot. I could use surgical spirit to harden them. Not convinced by this, it hardens the top liar of skin, keeps then blisters way for the first day, but when they do come, they come deeper and bigger. I am going for an expensive leather effect, tough but soft. 80-90% of competitors will get blisters so they will come, but the aim is to minimise the severity. The videos and pictures are not pleasant, the worst are blusters under the toe nails, drained with pins through the nail or the blisters under the soles of the feet, I have had pretty bad blisters on my hands from rowing, but nothing that compares, I had to turn away watching James Cracknels “Toughest Foot Race on Earth”.

I have had the most odd looks from squatting in the sauna, the jury is most definably out on the value of using a sauna to acclimatise to the heat, it is not the same heat and short bursts will have a negligible impact, but I have decided to go for it anyway. If nothing else, doing exercise in extreme heat will give me a bit of a mental advantage.

 

The runner’s knee I managed to get form over training is improving, I picked up the pace on a 10 mile run this evening to 7min/mile. It was not hard on the cardio side but I wanted to make sure I stay sensible, I seem to be kicking the injuries and don’t want to pick a new one up this close to the event.

Following my blog on my trip to Grantham I had an appreciated tweet form another entrant in the MDS 2012, telling me to go for it. So this week I have been looking a bit more at the numbers from past events, I like numbers, they do tend to say a lot, it does not seem that the Abandonments are linked to going off too hard early on. I am going to hold on to my original aim of top 20% if I get this, I will be really happy, if I got into the elite  top 50 for day 4, 56mile stage, I would be ecstatic and finishing is enough to  make me smile.

A smile is a step forward, throughout the last few months of writing this blog, I have  explored more about myself, what makes me so competitive, how this linked back to my dyslexia and having to prove myself, just been more aware of this, thinking about it, has allowed me to relax a bit more. Apologies for my long rambling posts and thanks for staying tuned in through the journey. I hope you have found some of them interesting, only 4 more to go.

It just makes me appreciate even more how important the work Springboard does in providing early intervention to address Childrens literacy problems and provide them with a mentor. These are really great kids and deserve a chance in life to reach their potential. The volunteers that give up their time are absolute heroes and I hope they understand the true value of their work.

http://www.justgiving.com/steven-artistmds