I’m loving that the long weekend run miles are sliding down faster than me outrunning an avalanche on my snowboard. Which is great because my legs feel so tired and worn out. Not sure they actually fully recovered from my week snowboarding in February.

After the hump when I dropped down to 17 miles Easter weekend in yet again sub zero my legs just felt so tired so I booked and extra massage hoping for a miracle.

By the time the massage appointment was available I had 19 more miles on my tired legs in the training bank.

Bank holiday Monday I  ran with Karen  6 miles along a windswept canal path climbing the Caen locks – the longest flight in Europe I think, I couldn’t hang around in the icy wind to read all the tourist information signs. I then had a sunny but chilly run on Tuesday around the country lanes of 8 miles. Wednesday we did something completely different at club night, as there were gale force winds we headed to the shelter of the cycle path. There we did three lots of 5 minute fartlek sessions. Eash five minutes was broken up with fast intervals ranging from 20 seconds to 60 seconds. A bit different and nice change of scenery instead of the bypass.

Thursday was a well deserved rest and stretch then the massage on Friday…. I walked across the driveway to Trinnys barn laughing as I realised I still had my slippers on ! 

At first I thought my legs were a little less tired, but no Trinny soon found the weak spots, she did tell me to bring something to bite on.

Inbetween trying not  to swear and chewing my hands to the bone I was saying that I’d never had tired legs like this before in marathon training, this is my third.

I have followed the training plan – not over or under trained, have stretched post runs, embraced my foam roller, had jacuzzis, bubble baths, recovery shakes and carbo loaded before runs, strength training in circuits, kept hydrated and fuelled in runs etc.
In fact all the right stuff.

The only conclusion I had come to and Trinny believes it to be most possible as she also suffers is the extra cold temps we have been experiencing has got into my muscles. Whilst I have done all my runs apart from Reading half in two pairs of winter tights or Skins and having a hat and gloves on I really believe that my leg muscles have been chilled and therefore not been working as efficiently and recovering from runs like before.

OK old age may also be a factor ! but I really think my body is struggling with the sub zero temps, give me a heat wave or 30c any day.

So I finish week 14 of training with 32 miles of running in my legs and one massage. The 13 miler on Saturday following my massage was actually OK and at a fairly swift pace 10:18min/mile. The sun was out so that lifted our sprits even if it only made it to 4c ( still double layers of tights etc on)

 So less than 2 weeks to the big one – London marathon. Taper time 🙂

Time to trust the training and embrace the taper. I really am backing off on the miles, keeping just a couple of intense workouts this week then rest and recovery and one last massage next week before heading to the big city.