And that's all!

Well, that's it... no more running apart from a couple of little half hour sessions practicing race pace! The last couple of weeks have been good for the weekend runs as I've done good pacing for most of them, practiced running slightly faster than race pace whilst tired, eating and drinking all that I plan to have during the race, working so hard on the Friday weights session that only an hour into the Saturday run and my legs feet like I've ran 30 miles already and generally pushing myself with pace more so than before. Last week was only 2 hours run on Saturday and then the same again on Sunday and I felt like it was nothing. It's very strange getting used to spending most of the weekend running to going to practically nothing and barely feeling out of breath at all.

I've gone through a series of emotions... everything from serious doubts about the 100 miler to genuine confidence I have worked hard enough to achieve it, and literally every type of emotion in between. Although the training hasn't been perfect (far from it actually), I DO feel like this is the fittest I've ever been, and I find that 'mentally' my mind is in the best place it's ever been too.

So, my plan for the race is to start out at just slightly faster than 5mph and try and stick to it for as long as possible. I'm going to try not to have any breaks at all for at least 30 miles and just have stuff passed to me by my crew. The plan (in my head) is to have my first proper break consisting of a sit down and a bowl of soup for 10 minutes at 51 miles where Sebby will be accompanying me thereafter.

Of course, what is in your head and what will happen on the day are two different things, so I'm prepared to change things if need be and not get hung up about something going wrong. Already the route has changed with 2 diversions due to the flooding yesterday which looks like it adds on just over 2 miles. Last year they finished having had to do 104 miles, so I'm trying to get over that annoyance now and accepting this is likely to be a factor so it doesn't upset me on the day. The weather keeps changing from sunny spells to 90% chance on heavy rain, so I'm taking every possible clothing combination you can think of. A lot of people have blogged about how cold it got last year and people were close to hypothermia. It's later in the year this time but that means nowt in England and our weather can go from boiling hot and sunny to snow in an hour!

So, this week I shall be mostly trying to chill out and not think too much about what I'm about to do. I've had help in this area by deciding to refurbish my bedroom and we have worked at that over the past couple of days so I haven't had too much time to dwell. I now just plan on making sure I get to the start line free from bugs (I currently practically live on echinacea) and fully rested. Let's hope my sleep is good. See you on the other side....