Good Luck To All...
Firstly apologies to one and all for my lack of posting, I was away to a wedding in Malta and only got back today. Secondly, what am I going to say??? My fellow bloggers have pretty much said all that I was going to sum up with in some very good pieces. In particular Steve Partington and his advice about food and drink. Some great advice there Steve.
Firstly I will start with my song/video and I will probably wind these up now on account I have no idea whatsoever as to what I could put on next, so I hope you have enjoyed them. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5pEnEcF-8ro
Secondly, my penultimate weeks worth of training. Well, to be honest I knew from a while back I was going to be in Malta, minimum temperature was 22.9 at night with a daily high around the 31c mark so whatever I was going to be doing was going to be light and easy whatever. My first morning I managed to haul myself out of slumber heaven at 0530 and managed an easy hours run before it got too hot. This I must point out now was the first and last time I did any walking or running outside. I am just going to list my activities and yes I am counting them all; snorkelling, bannana boat, jet skis, swimming, circuit training in the gym, 2 workouts and a couple of tennis lessons. I must also thank here one of the Maltese National Tennis coaches who so very patiently cast his expert eye over my 2 lessons, Rob Tarpey. Rob was very keen to hear all about the Parish Walk etc etc. I get the feeling that although I may be a tennis convert for the future, I feel my entusiasm didn't spill over to him and he may not be gracing our shores to have a go so to speak! So all in all a lot of nothing in terms of training to what the last few weeks have been like which is exactly how I had hoped it would be. In fact I am really up for the challenge now, legs feel great all seems to be in place more or less, just the last minute nerves creeping in every now and then. I cannot wait.
This week I am not doing a thing except eating my daily quota of carbs. Work has backed up while I was away so at least I will be very busy up until friday night so I can try not to think about the race too much. I have also spent a lot of time deliberating and "mentally arguing" with myself as how to actually walk the Parish this year. I have come to this conclusion. I have put in a lot of training in the last year on the back of my effort last year. I do not want to blow it in the first third of the race. I will start nice and easy and see how I feel as/if I get to Peel and how the days weather is progressing. If I feel good here I push, if I don't I wont. That said I am trying my very best to follow a pace and time schedule that will hopefully get me to my target time of under 20 hours, anything less would be great but it is not a priority and something I must not get wrong. I guess another case of one foot in front of the other with fingers crossed! At this point in my life I am still relatively new to the sport of competitive walking and I have an awful lot more to learn still. I do hope to continue walking this year again with my sights set on the Winter Walking League and the End To End and who knows The Parish Walk 2008!!! I feel that at these upcoming races it is more of a chance to work on being competitive and getting stuck in the thick of things, but not yet. The Parish Walk is still an extremely tough endurance race and something not to take lightly. It has to be treated with the respect it deserves.
Finally, this weekend marks 10 weeks of no alcohol. I have just managed to go the entire Malta trip with none. I do not mind admitting I am not finding it too hard to do but if I get to the Prom. this year then it is safe to say there may be a couple or 3 sunk. I will be honest here and say that I have been up since 4am this morning and I hope that this is making some sort of sense to you, so with that I will close now but I hope to be able to do another entry before the race itself, if I do not manage it I will post one more time with news of how I went on race day. So for now good luck to one and all and I wish everyone a safe and enjoyable Parish Walk 2007.
