Less than a month to go...

Now I have my training worked out until the Marathon itself on the 27th (assuming everything goes to plan, of course). It doesn't look like much of a taper but there is a slight increase in intensity in exchange for less volume. I estimate that the Marathon itself is worth about 450 "ECOs" (similar to TRIMPs, or TRaining IMPulses) which means that the overall load of the last week is similar to the load I have been under over the last few weeks.

Between now and then, I have a couple of key workouts which I really need to make sure I hit feeling good and raring to go. The first is this Sunday and consists of a 35 kilometer run (the longest run I will have ever done in training) 16 kilometers of which I am to run at Marathon pace. Given that the conditions will be different to the flat, sea level course in Valencia, I have to decide whether to run those 16 kilometers at my projected (hoped for) pace of 4:15 per kilometer and see what happens to my heart rate or to run according to the heart rate I expect to run those kilometers of the Marathon at, and see what kind of speed I am able to get out of my legs. The other key workout is the following Sunday and is a Half Marathon run at Marathon pace (which sounds positively easy compared to the 35 kilometer run). There are also mid week sessions of series run at my anaerobic threshold which also start to look relatively easy.