2015 TP100 – Final Prep Complete

Well, there’s two days to go to the 2015 Thames Path 100 miler (TP100) and there is nothing else I can do in terms of preparation.

The last seven months, the dark, cold, wet winter nights, the 5am morning starts, the trudging along the A4 only inches from traffic, the 18 mile run commutes to work – it’s all been for this event.

On Saturday morning, I line up, with 300 others in Richmond, London and run along the Thames Path for 100 miles, ending up in Oxford.

I’m excited, I’m looking forward to it, I’m dreading it, I’m nervous, I’m feeling under prepared, I have spells of confidence, I have periods of “why the hell am I doing this”… but at 10am on Saturday, I’ll forget all that, knuckle down and give it my all.

If you know me, you’ll know that the TP100 race and I have a bit of a chequered history. In 2012 I was one of the race volunteers and marked out the route from Marlow (41m) to Reading (58m) – I’ve run that section 3 times now and it is amazing – , in 2013 I ran the race and DNF’d at 76 miles, in 2014 I trained all winter for it then injured myself 2 weeks before the start. This year, I get the monkey off my back… that’s the plan anyway…

Training

Overall the training has gone well. I’ve focused much more on longer back to backs, and have been making sure I get long runs in at least twice per week. In Feb I was in the US with work and got in a great back (10m) to back (10m) to back (18m) sequence. Earlier this month I got in a great morning commute to work (18m), a full days work, then an evening commute home (18m).
On Tuesday I got in my final long effort, a beautiful, sunny evening commute home (18m) along the Kennet and Avon canal. This was a full kit dress rehearsal, and everything went fine.

There have also been a couple of hiccups along the way. At the end of Feb I twisted, or somehow hurt my Achilles on a easy lunchtime effort, that put me out for a couple weeks, then I got back into things only to be struck by man-flu in early April and be unable to move, never mind run for 10 days.

So overall the training has been good, it’s just the (critical) last 5 weeks that have been less than stellar. Nothing I can do about that now, it is what it is.

The past couple of days have been kit prep and packing. I have checklists for everything. Tomorrow I have planned for last minute panic – “what have I forgotten…”
Final packing of drop bags and a bag for the finish, and last minute touches to my rucksack kit.

Weather looks poor (nothing I can do about that, so forget it..), but I have a hotel booked close to the start, so it should be an easy morning. Everything I can think of to make the final lead up as easy as possible I have done.