After London

Have been thinking about post-London racing plans. No plans to run another marathon and don't know if I ever will. But I do plan on continuing to train about as much as I did in preparation for London (in fact a bit more: higher average weekly mileage, over five days a week instead of four). And I plan on continuing to compete in shorter races, especially half-marathons and 10k's. Stockley Park 10k is in 2.5 weeks. Maybe I'll focus more on speed in my training and races, and if I get significantly faster—like, fast enough to qualify for London again—maybe I'll start running marathons again. That would be great because I'd love to be that fast again. On the other hand I've run ten marathons and ten is a nice sensible number, easy to remember! 

2016 London Marathon

Today was the day. It went well, finished in 3:26:51, 7:53 pace. That's one second per mile faster than Abingdon 2013, so I haven't slowed down as much as I thought. It's also faster than London 2014, Kent 2013, and Los Angeles 1999 (but slower than my other five marathons). I'm very happy with it. All the training paid off. A bit drained now so won't provide much more exciting commentary, like about how I was teased by the threat of calf spasms for the last 1.5 miles or so (the kind that got me at London 2014).

Haven't seen any official photos yet, but I do have a nice one of me waving at family at mile 23, taken by Jade.

Seventh (and Last) London Long Run

My training for the London Marathon peaked today, with a 22 mile run mainly around Chelsea and west London. This capped a 47.3 mile week, longer than usual because the Hillingdon Half was on Monday (and it served as my off-week medium run which I'd normally do on a Sunday). So my high-mileage week was counterbalanced by an easy 11-mile week last week, but still, it's reassuring that I could run so far in seven days with no problems, especially since the week started with a half marathon at race pace. I felt good today, as with my 21-miler two weeks ago I had fuel in the tank at the end, didn't feel depleted. My last mile was my 7th-fastest and well above my average pace (which was three seconds slower than for my 21-miler).

Started at Baker Street and finished at Hammersmith. The only site I'd planned to see today was the area around the Saatchi Gallery, where the Rolling Stones exhibit launches this Tuesday 5th April (we've got tickets for 16th April) and they've installed some big tongue logos.