3 days until Toronto marathon :-)

3 days to go and I am getting more and more nervous and excited at the same time!!  At this stage before the Paris marathon back in April I did not have these same nerves and excitement as I was really just hoping for a miracle that my injured sacroiliac joint would allow me to finish. This time around the build-up has been great. A few niggles here and there and a lot of physical therapy visits to get active release done but overall a solid gradual build-up. Thanks Ian Babe and Arthur Cuenco. My tune up race was the Edmonton half marathon on August. This race went really well and I was very happy to run 1:11.50 - my new pb :-) This race was a good confidence builder. I felt strong during the race and recovered well afterwards.

I have been really enjoying the long runs and tempos and challenging my body to run faster than I have before. It has been good to in this build up to increase my tempos to 70 minutes. I feel I am stronger. During the weekly tempo run I have had great support from Gabriel and Lucas. Gabriel rides along on his bike handing me my water and gu and Lucas is attached in his bicycle trailer :-) I think Lucas finds it very comfortable as he pretty much sleeps for the 70 minutes :-)

It has been great working with my coach Ian Babe. Even though he is New Zealand we keep close contact through Skype and he knows me and how my body works very well. He has a lot of knowledge about running and training and life in general which I have found very helpful.

I have been enjoying the taper and my body has really appreciated the cut back in mileage. In the last few weeks before the taper it seemed as if every day some part of my body was tight or a little sore. Always very worrisome. I am very relieved that I did not get injured in this build up. I started carbo-loading today. I have been doing a lot of research over the last few months about carbo-loading and there is so much information and so many different ideas. As everyone is so different it is hard to write a blue print for the perfect nutrition plan although this would be great if it existed. I have been practicing in training so I believe m y nutrition is sound.I have been using the taper as a time to visualize and focus for the race. 

In the past I have always made the mistake of going out too fast and then not being able to hang with the pace at the end. On Sunday my goal is to run an even race from the start and hit all of my km splits. I will post an update after the race to let you all know how it goes.

Lucas has been great during all of this marathon training. He is growing up way too fast. He is walking everywhere now and even trying to run sometimes. Maybe he can help me with my tempos in the next buildup :-)

To end this post I want to say a huge thank you to Mizuno and Arnold Tse, coach Ian Babe, physical therapist Arthur Cuenco, coach of Ottawa Athletic Racing Team Ken Parker, the Ottawa Athletic Club and of course Gabriel and Lucas. Your support has been wonderful and very much appreciated!!