Taper time! Woohoo!

Last week was a good week. It started with my longest run ever, time-wise: a leisurely 2h51min on the mountain, through the remains of the snow storm. It actually felt easier than the previous hard 20milers done in 2h20 on snow. Woke up in the middle of the night Sunday (post-run) with chest pains. Chest pains so bad they woke me up! Marcio, a guy I coach who also happens to be a heart surgeon, or something, says that it is most likely stomach acid, or muscle cramping, and NOT heart related. Still, chest pains, lower back trouble...you wouldn't know I'm actually not even 30 yet.

After easy runs on Monday and Tuesday, in which my legs hurt a bit but not too much, I tried for the 10k progression run on Wednesday. I managed to get down to 3:30/k on the last two Ks (nos. 7 and 8) but that was it. I ended up with about 8k total. Not bad anyway, but no top end speed. So Coach Frank and I decided that I should do some 800s in 2:30, which is not all that fast, but faster than anything else I've been doing, and 400s are pretty much useless for marathon prep. Anyway, that went down later...

Thursday I doubled up for the first time in a while. The evening run was cool: Cat brought her dog, Nicolai. He was chill. Unfortunately, Christina did not run with us. That would have been fun to see, haha. She did meet the dog, but declined his amourous advances. How she could resist his husky eyes? Anyway... Friday I just did an easy 30min, basically running up to the track to see Tafik run his 1500.

Tafik is this kid who trains with the Tuesday night Jog-o-max (worst team name ever) group. His teacher and her sister train there, too. I guess the school he's at is mostly populated by under-privileged kids, so he can't necessarily afford to join a club. He ran pretty well: 5:15. He started pretty quick (as did the field) but he was consistent. He came back and ran a solid 21min 5k on Sunday, too. So, Isabelle (his teacher) and I are going to try to get him to run with Fleur-de-Lys. The school will pay the club fees, probably.

Saturday was my last fast long run. I felt awesome. I ran to meet Christina at Gouin and Salk, but I was so fast (i.e. I was so early) that I had to keep going to her house. I made it there in under an hour! She stuck with me for about 3min. I was going about 6:20/k or maybe a little faster, as that ended up being my average time for the whole thing. I ended the run at Boutique Endurance, just because I knew I could get some food there. The usual sniping from Bert, of course. You can't go in the store without enduring "good natured" ribbing from guys who haven't run much lately. I can take it from Pierre, because if you make the Olympics, you've got impunity, but it's funny how everyone knows everything about everyone else, and they always tell you you are doing the wrong thing. Never an encouraging word. Whatever.

The long run was solid and I feel a lot more confident. I doubled up Sunday (because it was too nice not to) and Monday, all four shorter, very easy runs. Today I felt ok. I went up to Robillard to do the 800s. I only managed 4 of them, in 2:31,35,35,32. I just didn't really have it. I didn't want to do it. I acheived my goal of getting the legs moving. I don't know if it was enough to do anything for the VO2max, but at this stage, that's not really the purpose. As I told Caroline, everything we do now, before Boston, is just to make ourselves feel ready to race.