Thursday, October 31, 2013

Last minute preparations

I am so enjoying myself today. I weighed myself at 80 kilos this morning and, for three days, I'm going to allow myself to eat all those things I've been holding back on (well, almost all): chocolate, energy bars, pasta, rice, bread... I know by now that, even though they are only three days, with all the water retention that goes hand in hand with storing carbohydrates as glycogen - not to mention the effects of a long haul flight - I am likely to feel like a beached whale come Sunday morning.

A friend of mine has posted an excellent piece on the logistics for the New York City Marathon which has come in very handy, not least because I had forgotten about the clocks going back in New York one week after they do in Spain. I also purchased a license for an impressive spreadsheet she links to, which calculates your mile by mile pace taking into account hills and a number of parameters which you can control. Here is the result for the parameters I set



Whether I will follow it remains to be seen, but it is useful to know that, if I find myself 20 seconds behind pace after the first mile, I am still on track: this is exactly the sort of thing that can turn out to be a shock if it is not anticipated, potentially throwing off the pacing for the other 25 miles.

Having said all this, I will try to remember to enjoy the Marathon. As I often say, it is a privilege to be have the roads all to yourself (and 69,999 other people) and - let's face it - especially the roads of New York.

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