Nat Couture Training Update: Brookvale Win and Fully Tapering
Finally I'm nearing the end of this training block. There are good weeks and bad weeks, and at the start of this past week things weren't looking great. Despite a good run at the Herring Run, I had 3 great days of training following the race and bang on the 3rd run of the 3rd day I felt some pretty serious tightness in my right lower leg. I woke up Thursday not feeling great and that didn't give me much confidence going into my last long run, the 50k race at Brookvale that was happening on Sunday. I decided to give up some miles in favour of rest and took Thursday and Saturday completely off from running and only did a short run on Friday. I could feel the tightness in every step right up until Saturday night, then magically Sunday morning, the day of the race, the issue seemed gone. I didn't take any chances and started the race at a casual pace, but by the time I got to 15k I had ramped up to a good solid race pace. I ended up running loop 1 in 2:03, and loop 2 in 2:09, leaving me nearly 2 minutes shy of the course record and very surprised that my fitness was right where it should be. I was faltering towards the end as I felt the cramps coming on, but still felt it was a great confidence building run as I enter my full taper mode and get ready for Eastern States 100.
