3 weeks until the end....

What a beautiful weekend, waking up on Saturday morning to the sun streaming though my window set the scene for a nice relaxing day on the common, few glasses of wine in hand and a very unhealthy pick-nick lunch; perfect preparation with only 2 weeks to go before my beach holiday, a nice week on the soft golden sands of the Sahara in blistering heat.

Throwing corrosion to the wind the wind I opted for plan B. A 20 mile runs around Richmond Park, almost the same thing. It is an amazing place and got to chase a few dear, fenton, Fenton, FENTON!

I decided that I would go for a full kit test; although I did cover my modesty with a pair of normal shorts over my Lycia shorts, did not think Richmond was quite ready for full desert atria just yet, and glad I did. A women became so affixed with my Gaiters attached to my trainers that she fell over a fence post, I dread to think what incidents I would have been responsible for if I had been in my full Lycia number. I got so much abuse from people in the park form my gaiters, mostly form very unfit people struggling to peddle round the park, if you are going to mock me, at least know what you are mocking, it’s funny how the people on the bikes that looked like they knew what they were doing chose to should words of encouragement and good luck for the MDS – ok rant over (The gaiters are stitched to my trainers which needed to be run in bit more in case you are wondering).

The run it’s self was good, the first time out with full race weight bag; I set off at a fairly steady 7:30 min/miles, kept at this pace for the first two laps (1 lap = 6.75 miles) and glad I did, it is amazing how the extra Kg's on your back really makes it much harder, running a very combatable 12 miles at <7 min/miles earlier in the week I thought 7:30 should be about right. The hills don’t help but the last lap did become more challenging and had to slow my pace, the last steep hill I dropped to almost a walk finished off about 7:50 min/miles average pace. I was hoping to do back to back days running this weekend but I am playing on the safe side with 2 weeks to go and my knees still playing up I decided on a core strength session, stretching and long sauna session. I don’t ache, so all good, I just need to sort out my dam knees.....

It is only 2 weeks to the start and there is very little I can do in terms of improving my fitness, I can continue to train in the hope I don’t hurt as much in the morning after the day before. My weight loss is going well I hate not being able to eat what I like but I have been good, now down to 69kg, looking a bit drawn in my face but I am not going out to the desert to look sexy. My diet is about as done as it can be so next week I start the carb loading cycle, the first week is not what you maybe imagining. I am carb starving, a week of effectively starving myself to trick my body into believing I am in a famine,  then the week I head out, my favourite part, the Carb loading, eat as much complex carbohydrate as I can, complex carbs, brown rice ect, aim for 5,000 cals per day.

It is also time to really ramp up the mental prep. Maybe even a bit of visualisation, it will be a challenge to imaging the conditions as I have next experienced them. I did have a boost to the mental prep today. As we move though life we all meet people that influence who we are, inspire us or help use through the challenges that life throws at us. Some remain firmly in our lives, other people can be taken from us, some prematurely. Some people we simply lose contact as our life moves on. At various points I have discussed how important that mentoring relationship is and why I feel so strongly about the value springboard adds. I have also talked about how lucky I was to have that through my education. After finishing Durham they closed my e-mail accounts and I lost all me e-mail addresses, loosing contact with various people.  One of those addresses was one of the most important and influential teachers in my development, helping me though some very difficult times which are not appropriate to discuss in a blog, but looking back, I was incredibly lucky to have her support and a great boost after so many years to receive an e-mail from her  after recieving an e-mail to the school from my father.

Time to sign off now and start dreaming of the desert. When we have such butiful sunsets in London, I can't wait to see what the Sahara has in store.

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