The running has been plentiful and the efforts hard. The scenery has been ever changing. The first of the last long two runs that remained on the dwindling calendar was in the adopted home town of Minneapolis. With a few last minute changes, the venue flipped from a monotonous high paced trip around the track to a fast paced training run with Napoleon. How else would it have gone?? With time tight and opportunity slim, with gently bashed out loops around the lakes in the mid morning, we smashed out the miles in a surprisingly enjoyable time, despite our fast flagging energy stores. It was a good rehearsal for a showdown come Oct 5th. It's going to be a lot of "fun".
Seven days later and the scenery flipped to the English countryside for a hilly and very picturesque run with my lovely wife in tow on the bike. 18 miles looping around the rolling and sometimes harsh hills of the English country.
It was a perfect ending to the short marathon specific training that has lasted the last six weeks. We couldn't have picked a better day for it and the 18 miles ticked by and with the accompaniment of my wife, before I knew it the final climb up Frieth Hill was upon us and we were in the house for a well earned cuppa.
The following week after we flew down to the never ending steps of the picturesque town of Positano nestled in the seaside mountains of the Amalfi Coast. Just a couple of short runs on the calendar, but what a view!
Presented with a last medium run of six miles, we elected instead to climb 1,750 steps up to the mountain town perched above us. A perfect replacement and a final view that made the steps all that much more worthwhile.
What a great ending to the taper and now back to the United States for the last week and the season finale - the most beautiful urban marathon in the world.
Good luck to us all!!
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