Tales of Trails, Mountains and Rocky Roads

I was meant to have raced the Adrenaline 27km Night Race on Saturday evening, but instead I was at the cinema watching the new "Guardians of the Galaxy" movie. It wasn't intentional, but last Tuesday I had a terrible sore throat and by Friday I was snorting out lots of the green stuff and had lost my voice. I was actually feeling ok and went to bed Friday night with every intention of racing but on waking up on Saturday morning, I started to question whether racing would be wise. Since the Whiskey Basin 88k at the beginning of April, my focus has been on the San Diego Marathon. The Aravaipa races have just been part of my preparation for the marathon and whilst I love to race and be competitive whenever I can, I haven't really been out to win these races but rather used them to gauge my current fitness levels.  T he plan had been to run the Adrenaline race at my marathon pace, or at least as close as possible given that I would be running in the dark on trail...

We are now in May and marathon training is in full swing and I have to say that I am very surprised and very happy with how things are going right now and so long as I can avoid injury and I don't overdo things, I am feeling optimistic about a good run in San Diego next month. Looking back to April, it was a pretty awesome month - not only did I have some good races but I also had some good training sessions which have given me a huge confidence boost. It hasn't been easy with Andy working away so much, but I have managed to fit in some decent quality runs in between walking the dogs and keeping them entertained, and looking after myself. I recovered surprisingly well from Whiskey Basin and within a couple of days, my legs were back to normal and I was ready to run again - so much so that I sneaked in a little 3-mile run a day earlier than I should have done! But I felt great and having taken it easy, I knew it wasn't going to do any harm. I also got a cou...