7 More Sleeps to go

Well that is assuming we manage to sleep for the next 7 nights !!!

Who would have thought it eh - one week to go and we will actually be running the London Marathon - that sunny day, wine and a general conversation when the plan was orignially hatched now seem such a long time ago. The first route that we trained on - twice round a 1.5 mile circuit from the gym to where we are now, hopefully ready to tackle the 26.2miles that London will present us with next sunday. I don't think I actually believed we would get this far and I am now so excited about next week but also very nervous as well.

We will try and keep you up to speed, no pun intended, on how things go this week in the run up or run down !

Obviously we are now at the "tapering" stage, where we should be cutting down on our milage and the speed we run at. Unfortunately on our last long run yesterday, planned for circa 5 / 6 miles, I managed to take Liz, Lisa and myself on a really lovely scenic run through beautiful Hertfordshire countryside. It was a long time, circa 6 years, since I had done this route and underestimated quite how long it was - so returned to chez Lewis 1 hour 45 minutes after we left -oops , that was not the plan. The three of us were all feeling quite lethargic yesterday with heavy legs so think rest is now needed. Lisa has had her hip "put back in" this week, so she was really feeling the pain from that - not helped by the rather chilly nip in the air on the day we also decided to try out our running vests with no other long sleeved tops underneath them - glad we tried it yesterday and think they may be going back on for next week. I also dispensed with my trusty woolly tights that I run in under my shorts - not comfortable at all so they will be back in place for next week along with my just about holding together cashmere socks - no blisters for me to date so far with that combo so plan to stick with what has worked so far. No one will ever mistake me for a serious, proper runner as no aerodynamic, go faster leggings for me !

Back to the important stuff, the remaining training plan for this week is two x 3 mile runs on tuesday and thursday and that is it.

Focus should now be on rest and balanced nutrition - haven't got the food part off to a flying start this week though. 18 of us gathered at the Lewis household this morning for brekkie of rolls on sausage before we all piled over to Watford for the Saracens vs Ospreys game - if anyone has ever grilled square sausage and has seen the amount of fat that comes off of them then you know this is not the healthiest breakfast possible - Glasgow is not coronary heart disease city of Europe for no reason you know. It does make a great breakfast sandwich though!

Many thanks to Liz for sorting out all of the tickets for this game and to Shirty for borrowing the Tabard minibus to transport everyone over - also to Jamie for supplying the whisky / whisky mac for the hipflasks and to Keith for co-ordinating today and keeping everyone topped up with tea / coffee over breakfast. This "event" was done as a bit of a fundraiser for our charities but I think everyone will agree that it was a great morning /afternoon. Ok the Welsh supporters may not have been too happy with the final result but it was a good game and well done to Saracens for their 1st semi final place in the Heinekin cup and their first sellout game. Also well done to both teams for turning out some fine looking lads and for putting an Argintina rugby team beside us - happy days all round !!

The boys had a great journey back over to St Albans and went off for a sunday roast and to watch the second quarter final - Lisa, Liz, Nicky and I had decided to go by car, rather than in the minibus and took at least 40 minutes to get out of the car park watching some fantastic examples of carpark rage going on during this time. Hint for the future, if Lisa Mason gives you THAT stare, don't even think about trying to pull out in front of her cos it is sooo not happening....

We have had some piccies taken of us in our running vests and these will be posting up on the blog over the coming week so you will know what to look out for if you are going to be down in London next Sunday.

As I said at the start of today's post, who would have thought it???

Well, here we are, we have all achieved the fundraising targets for our charities and all we need to do now is get out there and run next sunday..........

At the risk of getting caught up in another one of my oscar speeches, I would just like to say that I genuinely do not believe that we would have got to where we are in our training preparations without the incredible support we have had.
THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR EVERYTHING YOU HAVE DONE TO GET US TO WHERE WE ARE NOW AND FOR YOUR ON-GOING SUPPORT THAT WILL HELP TAKE US ROUND THE COURSE NEXT SUNDAY.

Lots of Love, the Crazy Ladeez xx