21st - 26th May 2012

M  6.07 miles recovery (7:09mm avge)
T  7.19 miles general aerobic (6:22mm avge)
W  8.11 miles, including 2.04 miles @ 5:38 (6:15mm avge)
T  6.21 miles recovery, including 6X100m strides (7:05mm avge)
F  Rest
S  2.36 miles recovery (7:13mm avge)
S  Watch this space......

Total  29.94 miles (6:43mm avge)

Finally here! This week has gone as well as possible given the lack of running and how that plays with your mind in the taper. I have touch wood managed to escape any further lurgies and my carb loading has gone absolutely fantastically well. The menu has been pretty similar for each day and will be for the rest of today although I'll eat my last big meal about 3:30 this afternoon.

For those interested my diet on Thursday and Friday has been

Breakfast
1pint of banana, raspberry, passion fruit and pineapple smoothie
Large bowl of cornflakes
Two crumpets

Morning snacks
1 litre of fresh apple juice
two toasted white bagels with lashings of raspberry jam (a tip from Steve Way (yes, I did plagiarise the format of his blog in creating mine ;-) ))

Lunch
Two large ham sandwiches on Thursday and large sushi & tub of chargrilled chicken pasta on Friday
Yoghurt
Large fruit salad

Afternoon snack
1 toasted bagel with raspberry jam

Dinner
c175g of pasta with a tomato sauce

Lots of water throughout the whole period, and a few salt tablets to get myself as hydrated as possible.

Training wise, I have done very little, and I even decided to give myself a complete rest day on Friday, just to really help freshen the legs up nicely.

I had a good little marathon pace test on Wednesday morning which left me feeling very comfortable of the pace I need to run tomorrow.

So this is it, I will be hitting the start line in the morning, hopefully in peak shape. I feel great, I really do and I'm glad I decided to pull out of London as in hindsight if I had run round I know I would not be feeling how I am today. My confidence is sky high of how the race will pan out. My training has been first class for me and I am  ready to move up a level. The weather looks like it wont be perfect but hopefully it will not be too bad and wont impact the run too much. All I can do is control the controllables and run my race. I wont win the race as there are too many top athletes running, I may not even come in the top 20 but I don't care where I come. This is about running a great race for me. I want to run like I have never run before; stronger, lighter, faster and being brave to hold back when it would be easy to push on and push on when it starts to get tough, but most of all I want to look back on the race and be proud of what I have achieved. This is the next step in my journey, and I truly believe it will be a giant leap forward.

To be continued.....