Looking awful, feeling great!

This was a lite weeks training to help recover from the previous week. Only 63km of running over 5 runs and 4.2km of swimming.  As usual the runs sessions were varied but because they were shorter I felt strong through the week, although a couple of disrupted sleeps didn’t help with my rest.  I’m very conscious that my weight has dropped back to the post Fling race and that’s not good.  I met with my coach today and we discussed the challenges of eating while training hard and working.  She’s totally right that a car with no fuel grinds to a halt so I headed off to the shops and stocked up with food that I can eat while at work.  It’s funny that as you get closer to an event you start to look gaunt and people think you’re ill when actually you’re in great shape.  Maybe the shape of a pencil but it’s too far away from the race to be this thing so I’ll be on the cake diet again!
I spend 1.5 hours on the massage table on Friday (not pleasant) and felt the better for it but I’m seeing my sports therapist on Monday as I really need to get my back sorted.  I spend so much time sitting at a desk that every so often in tweaks and I can’t afford that in Tahoe.  In the G2G race my back ached for the whole week, but I was carrying 24lbs.  At Tahoe my weight in my rucksack will be less, in fact that’s my next task - researching what I need to carry.  It also means I’m heading off to the gym this week with my coach to start strength work.
The hills are calling and in a weeks time I’m heading for some special training in the hills.  We’ve also been talking about tackling Ben Nevis, Scotland’s highest mountain at 1,345m. Small by comparison of the mountains around Lake Tahoe but I’m sure there will be enough pain in the training to get my legs ready and more importantly my mind.  Barring physical injury, the success of The Tahoe 200 will be decided in my mind so it also needs to be put through its paces. 102 days to go!