Week 20 of the Tour de Newport training plan and last 5 months have been an adventure in itself. Things have largely gone to plan with me just missing three runs due to illness and a slight issue with me knee after falling on some rocks. I’ve experienced so many interesting things on my weekly running adventures and the 4am runs have become a regular mid-week fixture that surprisingly I’ve managed to maintain. Two easy mid-week runs and then it’s the big day on Saturday.
Tuesday – 4 Miles
With just 4 miles to run today rather then the 8-12 miles I’ve been used to I treated myself to a bit of a lie in and headed out at 0420 rather than 0355. I usually wake up before my alarm so it was nice to be to lay there for 15 minutes before getting up.
Like last week I decided to mix it up with a different, but familiar route and headed up the Monmouthshire and Brecon canal for an out and back run. Even though there wasn’t a cloud in the sky, disappointingly the sky wasn’t as colourful as it has been. Still, it was a pleasant change running somewhere different. Just one run left on Thursday of a similar distance.
Distance: 4 Miles
Thursday – 30 Mins
And that’s a wrap. After 5 months of training the Tour de Newport is almost here. Over the last 20 weeks I’ve managed to stick almost religiously to a 100k plan covering almost 950 miles over 103 runs – 56 of which were 4am-ish runs (average time to run 04:13am)– including running 4 marathons, one ultramarathon and a 50k PB.
My weekend running adventures have taken me to places such as Melksham, Gloucester, Cheltenham, Bath, Stroud, Pewsey, Burnham, Bristol, Weston-super-Mare, St Donat’s, Freshford, along the Cotswold Way, Westbury on Severn, Pentyrch, Wickwar, along the River Wye, Ledbury, Frome and more.
Along the way I’ve seen numerous sunrises, a super moon or two , en-cow-ntered herds of cows, seen pheasants, an owl and birds of prey, taken numerous selfies with horses, swung on many rope swings, learnt all sorts of interesting historical facts, taken thousands of photos, seen some unreal graffiti, run through quaint villages, visited pubs and breweries, enjoyed the smells of bread baking at 4:30 in the morning and even been cheered on by a homeless guy on more than one occasion as he was waking up on a bench in Newport. I haven’t just run 103 times, I’ve probably made well over 103 memories.
With the ups come the downs and along the way I’ve had to deal with around 4 or 5 bags leaks on both short and long runs but you get used to them over time and compared to the runner’s trots I used to experience before having a new bum I’d choose a bag leak any day.
So with less than 48 hours to go, it’s time to see if the I’ve done enough training in terms of distance, correct terrain and the mental side of things.
Distance: 3.1 Miles (24 Minutes)
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