Tapering

I've twinged my back. Not related to tapering in anyway, but thought I'd open with it. Presumably a result of assorted twists in yoga last night combined with bad posture in my chair at work all day.

Anyway, as the title suggests I am now taking a bit easier in the run up to the Marathon du Mont Blanc. This week would have been an easy week anyway (as it was at the end of a three week 'hard' period), and following an extended weekend last week with lots of running and some mountain biking, and then on Wednesday an exquisitely painful massage my legs were well and truly knackered by the end of last week.

The bank holiday weekend consisted of mountain biking at Cwmcarn (the XC route, I'm not up to down hill), a local 12.5 ish mile very hilly route hard (1:50 - a new best), an easy hour round town and then finishing up on the Tuesday (I had an extended weekend) by running from one end to the Malverns and back. From the far south end to the north is 16km, > 1000m of ascent and took me 2 hours 10. The run back was presumably the same. But I took some slight short cuts on account of feeling properly stuffed. I got back to the car after 27km, 1400m of ascent and 3.5 hours (and a stop for a can of coke and cup of tea). The biggest bag of chip from the local chippy, smothered in salt, vinegar and ketchup was my unusual but well received recovery food.

So, the weekend just gone was quiet on the exercise front. Easy running and yoga. And we went to the EWR open day. It was a good afternoon, and the EWR folks were friendly and enthusiastic. I am really keen on the Lake Baikal thing. They were also giving away one of their arctic training weeks, which was won by the guy sitting next to me. Bah. However, all was not lost and Ali won 20 quid worth of Cotswold Outdoors vouchers, and the nice man from Bamboo Clothing who was there promoting their clothing gave us both a free top. I've only worn it round the house so far but I have to say its a fantastic material. Really comfortable. We got 10% off any orders in the next couple of weeks and I'll be taking advantage!

Anyway just under three weeks to go to the Cham Marathon. Aside from the Rough Ride next weekend it's all short stuff, with some fast runs thrown in the keep the lungs working and feet turning over. Really looking forward to being in Chamonix for a week in summer (even though it is a bit damp at the moment - hopefully the weather will improve).