Sunday, August 10, 2008

Nice day

Decent day all round. Apart from my run didn't even leave the house- these type of days are rare and appreciated! Started off with my 18 miler. Beautiful weather, good company, scenic rolling route, negotiated in 2:11, a comfortable 7:16 pace. Lower legs were feeling a little sore but I'll put that down to my first 2 hour plus run in quite some time. Iced and stretched well after though and feel fine now, although will certainly appreciate the planned day off tomorrow. More of the same starting again on Tuesday.

Spent the rest of the day playing with the kids, watching the Olympics, the golf and the football and generally chilling out. Emily had a play date and Sophie a good nap so I even managed to get a bit of kip myself.

Looking forward to Phelps' second final in a moment. The French have apparently been trash talking (although I expect something has been lost in translation) so we'll see!

Post script...... Mangez vos mots Alain!!! and British women's first gold medal in the pool for 48 years. And another late night...

2 comments:

Stanfords said...

Hey Paul, it's Nathan. I thoroughly enjoy reading your blog, and it sounds as if you're ready for a solid performance at Richmond in November. I'm planning to run the RM as well, albeit with a somewhat more 'modest' time goal.

I was in Richmond this last weekend for a wedding, and while there I ran the marathon course over 2 days (19 miles one day, 7 the next). I'm sure that you've studied the map and elevation profile online, but I thought some 'on the course' insight might be helpful as well.

The course isn't nearly as hilly as I'd expected - just a few patches, mainly overpasses and one short (400m?) but significant climb as you leave the portion of the course that parallels the river.

There's a lot more downhill than I expected. After having become acclimated to running in Charlotte I found most of the course to be-in my opinion-relatively flat.

The roads themselves are shoddy at times, and if you plan to run in flats you may feel some of the rougher spots and the significant camber of the road in the late stages of the race. Something like an Asics Bandito would be better suited for this course (more so than, say, the Asics DS Racer or Hyperspeed).

Overall it seems to be a very fair course, and any normal run in Charlotte should prepare you for the elevation @ Richmond.

Let me know if you have any questions: nlstanford@yahoo.com. Best of luck with your training!

mainers said...

Nathan, great to hear from you and thanks for all the insight- very useful!!

Are you doing Greekfest? If so i'll look out for you!

Cheers and thanks again!