Drama, drama, drama!

We'll come onto the drama in a minute but this has been a big week for my training with my 80km ultra race looking likely to go ahead in 20 days time.  The build up hasn't been ideal with effectively two weeks off due recently to injuries.  Last weekend I was "bust" on a 42km mountain adventure and that knocked onto this weeks training with me having 2 days off to recover.  I was reminded by my coach Genevieve that sticking to my plan and not exceeding the targets was important - take that as a the nearest I've had to a reprimand over the 10 years we've worked together, but she does know what she's doing.  Nobody knows my limits better than she does so I was back with the plan by Monday.
In the 5 days I ran this week I covered 104kms.  A few smaller runs to get the fatigue out of my system early on followed by 20km Friday, 38km Saturday and 24 km today.  These back to back runs, running on tired legs are crucial.  What was important was the pace and I worked hard at running slowly which will be required to complete 80km in a day.
The drama came on Saturday.  My pal Gav is  running a 70 mile race the week after me so I knew he'd be doing big slow miles so we met up to run a relatively flat 38 km trail along the Clyde Valley.  Gav hadn't been so far along the valley and I was excited to show him the route through the trees.  "Watch out for the dodgy board walks which are covered in mesh" I said.  10 minutes later we crossed a boardwalk where a piece of mesh was raised and caught the aggressive lugs on my shoe - BANG head first down!  I was seeing stars as Gav helped me up and I could feel the blood coming from the wound above my eye and my knee was cut, bruised and bleeding.  It's ridiculous as the previous weekend I was in the Scottish mountains on two technically difficult Munros and came off unscathed but put me on a level trail and I end up cut and bruised. At this point were 16km into a 38km run but this wasn't going to stop me completing the task.  Even if I'd turned back it would still have been 32km but not the target of 38km.  So we pressed on.  Gav got the pace right so while we hardly spoke for the last 10km, we got it done.  It's funny when out on long runs that there comes a point that the chat stops and you retreat inside your own head telling yourself it will be over soon.
I got home and came to the conclusion stiches weren't required but food certainly was.  Fed and cleaned up I started the recovery as I knew I had another important run today - but first some wine to go with a lovely dinner.  Early night and slept like a log.
Today my chaperone was Stuart.  We could get lost in a car park and managed to do it in a route I knew at least 95% of.  Again Stu set a steady pace and in two of the big hills we walked them because we're experience to know how tough the closing kms would be on a 20km run after a heavy weeks training.  I'm glad we did.  We took a diversion from the normal route to add some kms on so we wouldn't be running round the park at the end.  When heading back we took a couple of wrong turns and had to find a new way back to the main trail. The "new route" was amazing and because we had climbed too high, we got the reward of a long downhill through a bluebell forest - it was stunning.
Again the last few Kms required us to dig in deep and I was pleased when it was over.  I was so hungry on the way home I had to stop for a Burger King just to keep me going.
My coach has reported that's epic distances over as we taper for the Moray Coastal Ultra Trail.  I'm waiting to hear from the organisers as last week they were in level 3 and if that remained we wouldn't have been able to travel to Moray.  That's been changed to level 2 so I'm awaiting an email telling me it's now on so fingers crossed.  While it would be disappointing if the race was cancelled, having that focus has got me into great shape for URR which is my "A race" in August.  A lot of hard work to be done between now and then with many epic runs and adventures ahead.  Hopefully they can be carried out without the drama but my pals will be looking out for me!