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Marathon tapering


Garfield2010

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I was wondering. There is a 50km marathon on Sunday (city2city)

 

I was planning on only dong a bit of swimming etc for the week. Would it be ok for me to run like 5km's today or should I rest the legs totally?

 

I am moderately fit. Did around 40 - 50km a week up until now and a bit of cycling.

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Yes it will be fine - just don't push it. You might also want to consider doing a couple more short and easy run sessions this week to keep the legs turning over. Maybe consider doing 20mins today, 20 Wednesday and 20 Friday as wel as some gentle biking and swimming. It will keep you nice and lose and rearing to go.

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I only run up to a 1/2 marathon, but I usually do my last run(easy-ish 5km) on Thursday evening before a Sunday race.

 

Female runners I run/train with (a serious bunch) are firm believers in a 20 minute easy run 12 hours before the race. Seems to work for them, they are around the top 10 femmes when they race...

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I ran quite a tough 25km on Sunday, so I'm thinking only a light 6km on Thursday and then maybe a 1-2km jog on Saturday. Will do about 50% effort on my 2 cycle sessions for the week and then continue as per normal for swimming. There is a Triathlon next weekend :-)

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I'm doing Cape Town Marathon on the 25th... Done about three 15km trail runs. All hope is lost. Really hope your one goes well :thumbup:

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Picked up my race number today. It is quite a long DRIVE from there to Centurion. This is gonna hurt. As long as I am repaired by next Sunday for the JHB City Tri I mean Duathlon, all good :)

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Good race overall. Could well turn out to be the "2 Oceans" of Gauteng. Water points were good. Lots and lots of hills though. And then more hills. And then the last 8km, with even more crazy hills ;-) Realised I did not taper enough, but tend to recover fast. Didn't collect any injuries so should be ok by the weekend.

 

The shirt and medal are ok. The goodie bag was very disappointing, I'd call it more of a "bag". The finish line was pretty good, perhaps a little less spectacular than Comrades 2011 (which was pretty poor for a race of that standard).

 

Will I do it next year? I doubt it. If it's run in exactly the opposite direction, those downhills coming into Centurion will rip my quads off ;-)

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Lets start with the bad:-

 

1. I was there at 4AM already (at the finsih point in Melrose) awaiting my bus ride to centurion which I paid for upfront! No busses came. Had to hitch a ride with another desperate soul at around 05h40. So instead of chilling and being prepared and relaxed it was a race to just get to the start. Bullshait if you ask me. Apparently it also happened last year.

 

2. Finish line. Got there and they only gave me one cup of coke. WTF? Also they ran out of medals and gave me a 21km medal? WTF? Imagine completing an IM and they only give you a BSG medal. Once we finished we had to walk a painfully long way to get our race goodie bag and as gripen said, it was basically empty.

 

The good. Awesome traffic control and even better water points. Thanks to all those people along the roads supporting. It was one tough race but well supported.

 

Will I do it again? Never. But maybe rather ask me in 2 weeks time........

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Lets start with the bad:-

 

1. I was there at 4AM already (at the finsih point in Melrose) awaiting my bus ride to centurion which I paid for upfront! No busses came. Had to hitch a ride with another desperate soul at around 05h40. So instead of chilling and being prepared and relaxed it was a race to just get to the start. Bullshait if you ask me. Apparently it also happened last year.

 

2. Finish line. Got there and they only gave me one cup of coke. WTF? Also they ran out of medals and gave me a 21km medal? WTF? Imagine completing an IM and they only give you a BSG medal. Once we finished we had to walk a painfully long way to get our race goodie bag and as gripen said, it was basically empty.

 

The good. Awesome traffic control and even better water points. Thanks to all those people along the roads supporting. It was one tough race but well supported.

 

Will I do it again? Never. But maybe rather ask me in 2 weeks time........

 

What is this BSG medal of which you speak? ;-)

 

All the races started late it seems. The buses were running late and the cops got lost. Yip, never say never. I'm saying Never :-)

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I was comparing. They gave me a 21km medal yesterday cause they ran out of 50km medals. I am saying it is as if you finish the IM and the guys donet have medal anymore so they give you a 70.3 medal or something.

 

There were no buses? I waited until 05h40 and there was no busses. Everyine then spilt up and drove with their cars. They said the bus service would run from 4h30 on their website.

 

Its lekker to stand in the cold and shiver for 90 minutes cause there aint any busses.

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Kidding man, there is no such thing as a BSG medal :) But that does suck to get a 21km medal, on the other hand my medal did not say 50km. Maybe I was also screwed over. It just says City2City marathon. I saw lots of medals left over though.. what was your finishing time? I came in at 4h58.

 

Oh and the 70.3 medal is actually bigger than the IMSA medal. Don't believe me? Put them next to each other..

 

I saw a bus arriving at about 06:20. I heard people muttering about "the buses are running late". I live in Centurion luckily. Had to arrange lifts on both sides though, thanks to Gautrain not coming to the party with a shuttle bus to the Rosebank station or R10 parking (one-way train trip = R80 parking).

 

It was flipping cold yes.. and then I got sunburned later. Eish.

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Did 05h45.

 

Is there anything one can take for legs locking up in the last 10km's?

 

I did the marathon is 04h15. The last 8km however I couldnt run.

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