39. The One Where I Had A Whole Day To Do Nothing

26 September 2015

Since I've got six days - eek - to go, I'm now fully into the taper!  I had 10km to do on the schedule today.  I was a bit tempted to do 20km because 10km just feels so ... short ...!  And lazy!  But I soon pulled myself together and realised I sounded like one of those, and put the 10km back on the schedule.  I went down to Richmond Park and figured I'd just do a lap which is 11km, close enough.

Once I'd sorted that out, I had the biggest decision to make ... get up early (again) and have the day free, or sleep in and spend the morning getting to Richmond and running?  Hmmmm ... in the end the day won out and I got down to Richmond for 08:00.


It was sooooooo beautiful this morning!  I've not been able to see Richmond in that sort of light before because every time I've been down there it's been a bit grey and miserable.  Not today!  There was this amazing mist that covered the park with a blazing blue sky above and all the autumn colors in between.  I don't really love Richmond Park but I'm probably the only person ever to say that.  The park itself is cool and all - and there are deer, and deer are good - but it's just not massively my place.  Today though, it was GORGEOUS and I got what people keep telling me - it's lovely!

By the way there is no filter on this - there was condensation on the lens!

I was just doing one lap round the perimeter 'cause it was close enough to 10km and it's easier than thinking about it too much and zigzagging round.  On top of that, it meant that I didn't have to worry about navigation and with the shorter distance, I could just run!  This was exciting - I really really wanted to run today and I absolutely loved 95% of this run (the 5% is the bit where you know, you have to run up a hill and it feels like your lungs could actually explode imminently and your legs are at serious risk of dropping off).

It was nice to be running clean (ie not carrying anything) for a change and it was nice to be able to run rather than try and conserve energy.  I'm not saying I was fast - please, don't think that for a second - and I did walk from time to time especially on the massive hill at the end.  The aim was still ultra-training, so keeping it slow and real, but it was just nice to do a proper lovely run again!

It was also lovely to have a WHOLE DAY without either running or work!  Don't get me wrong; I've had some fantastic days running but yeesh, it's been a lot of training on weekends.  I'm not actually doing anything, seeing as I'm meant to be in lockdown resting (honestly, you can take the girl out of triathlon but you can never take the triathlete out of the girl ... and no-one takes a taper as seriously as a triathlete.  We will taper aggressively and competitively!).  However ...  I've been able to check out my next nutritional adventure!  Check out these bad boys - these are peanut butter banana muffins!  When I said I was going to be doing muffins, my friend Rosh (who is an Ironman and so who I suppose, knows about this sort of thing) told me that I had to think about what sort of Glycaemic Index rating my home-made foods were going to have because otherwise I'd end up eating but not getting the right fuel.  I thought about that and decided to come up with the closest thing to a peanut butter and banana wrap as I could, but in form that is edible to me.  Enter ... peanut butter and banana muffins!  I have - ahem - quality-tested one and I can confirm that it is A.MAZE.  I just got the recipe from Tesco actually but it fits all the bills - it's got peanut butter for fats and long-term energy, oats and flour and bready things for medium energy and sugar and bananas for instant energy.  Perfect right?!