10 miler (7 days to go)

10 miles only on hills. 

I found this much less encouraging. Went offroad for a third of this and expierenced severe need for a No. 2. A "gingerbread man" in Marathon Talk parlance. Too many figs? Not enough starchy foods? It's difficult to know exactly why and annoying that I can now no longer experiment with different foods to correct the problem before next Sunday. The other reasons why this was less than encouraging than the previous day at race pace is I didn't sense I had my wife's blessing plus I'd got a bit annoyed when the "window" closed earlier that day (so the emotional/psychology side), plus 16 km felt far and tiring at much less than race pace.

But the miles are in the bank! I need to adopt a positive attitude, with more long runs, speedwork and hill sessions under the belt than before. Particularly in terms of marathon prep, 460 miles (you can probably add 10 or more miles to that figure by the end of the week) absolutely obliterates previous distances run in build up season.

At the same time, the struggle and tiredness of this run highlight again how important it is to stick to the plan as best as possible. I cant just "listen to my body" for this distance yet. I still find i am capable of dropping off the pace if my mind wanders (admittedly this is less likely to happen in an actual race) or going to quick. Looking at the race plan though, I did think it would be good to allow myself at least the possibility of getting close to 3 hours (target is still 3:05) should I feel strong in the last quarter. The issue here though is that because of the elevation profile, I have set myself checkpoints according to the hills and not distances.
1although realistic.