Waiting for the Weekend

At the moment I am busy doing almost nothing, or to put it another way: I am in the middle of a half-arsed taper. Yes I have a race coming up, with little or no sensible planning and certainly no schedule to bring me to a peak of physical perfection, I can at least I can do the right thing and take it easy in the last week.

It was ever thus with my races: either a total lack of planning or schedules falling apart due to injury or illness! Sensible people plan their racing calendar, know well ahead where they are going to be so that they can train properly and perform at their best. Others are less disciplined and wake up one morning knowing that if they don't do something quickly the year will disappear without a single medal or memento. Dear reader that disorganised person is me.

Last week I decided it would be a nice idea to try a race on the same day as my sister, the 11th, when she is once again running the Victoria Half Marathon (my account of running that marathon last year are ,here, here, and here). The Henley half marathon had places available and so with a click of a button I was in, on a whim. Apparently it is mainly flat but with a hill at mile eight. Hmm that will be interesting. I have not been doing much hill training: another example of being slightly under prepared.

My sister and brother-in-law, on the other hand, are both very methodical in their training, know what they are doing and encourage each other to keep on track. They will run well and I am sure they will feature well in their age categories. Alongside them I feel rather haphazard but not at all downhearted. I run fairly consistently so should not be in too bad a shape (even if not in tip top form I should be able to get round OK) and there is something about doing things on the spur of the moment that I like.

So bring on Sunday and good luck to anybody else doing a race that day (especially the Royal Parks half).