I have been to a lot of relaxing, stunning places in my life, but this particular place is particularly ‘chill’. It’s perfect: there’s a 10km stretch of coastline nearby (think one continuous, beautiful, mostly-untouched beach, with a line of shady, sheltering trees between the road and the sand) to run alongside/up and down, a hill/mountain inland (for views and for dreaming of future trail running), friendly and lovely people, a plethora of delicious and cheap food/snacks, clean air, blue skies, plus mostly friendly local dogs. Oh and red squirrels in the morning too. That’s a nice touch. The perfect place to come and hang in post-Hanoi and pre-Bangkok marathon. Which is now just under two weeks away! Eek...
I’m feeling that familiar pre-race nervousness now, but for an entirely different reason to usual. There are no nerves for wanting to beat a previous time or set a new pb. No, I’m going to take this one quite cruisily and won’t be aiming to beat my previous time of 3:26. (Mind you, anywhere ideally somewhere before the 4 hour mark would be good, but who knows...). I am feeling a bit nervous due to the time of the race: namely, this race begins at midnight! So will effectively be a night-race as the whole thing will be in the dark. Hmmm...
I have zero to little training at night (and won’t be doing any here, in case this rattles the local soi dogs or confuses them into attacking or something) and previous attempts at running in the dark have included two rolled ankles. Hopefully this won’t be the case again! But I will be taking it very carefully and gently anyway. Just in case. It will be strange having the race essentially at the end of the day too, and there won’t be any sleep the night before. Maybe I will sneak an arvo ‘power’ nap in on 4th, who knows.... But, as an ultra-marathoner mentioned, maybe it’s a good thing: then I can just have a feed and go to sleep straight afterwards. Which sounds like a plan.
Well, sleep for a little bit anyway, but not for too long as then I will be straight off to the airport to catch my flight back home to Straya!! I. Can’t. Wait.
Before then: two weeks of tapering in quiet and peaceful Thailand (where, yes, amazing massages also feature as part of my ‘training’, obviously) can be no bad thing.
Sending love to you all and missing you. You know who you are. xxxxx
Here are a few pics of my current training area:
I’m feeling that familiar pre-race nervousness now, but for an entirely different reason to usual. There are no nerves for wanting to beat a previous time or set a new pb. No, I’m going to take this one quite cruisily and won’t be aiming to beat my previous time of 3:26. (Mind you, anywhere ideally somewhere before the 4 hour mark would be good, but who knows...). I am feeling a bit nervous due to the time of the race: namely, this race begins at midnight! So will effectively be a night-race as the whole thing will be in the dark. Hmmm...
I have zero to little training at night (and won’t be doing any here, in case this rattles the local soi dogs or confuses them into attacking or something) and previous attempts at running in the dark have included two rolled ankles. Hopefully this won’t be the case again! But I will be taking it very carefully and gently anyway. Just in case. It will be strange having the race essentially at the end of the day too, and there won’t be any sleep the night before. Maybe I will sneak an arvo ‘power’ nap in on 4th, who knows.... But, as an ultra-marathoner mentioned, maybe it’s a good thing: then I can just have a feed and go to sleep straight afterwards. Which sounds like a plan.
Well, sleep for a little bit anyway, but not for too long as then I will be straight off to the airport to catch my flight back home to Straya!! I. Can’t. Wait.
Before then: two weeks of tapering in quiet and peaceful Thailand (where, yes, amazing massages also feature as part of my ‘training’, obviously) can be no bad thing.
Sending love to you all and missing you. You know who you are. xxxxx
Here are a few pics of my current training area:
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