Bonk or not to Bonk?

Pre-race prep.  It's a dilemma, whether you are going to Bonk or not. 

For the shorter races, you can probably get away with it.  With the longer races you need absolutely everything in your reserves to get you through.  This week, I had challenged myself with the normal training.....  finishing off the week with a "practice" trail marathon called the Bedford Clanger.  So would I Bonk or not?  I'd Bonked before and it was very painful - I didn't want to do it again.  I was doing the marathon with Viddy and UltraJ - so I definately didn't want to Bonk with them depending on me to get around.  I had to get the pre-race prep right.

Training this week comprised of more longer distance speedwork (tempo runs) as I had relooked at the schedule that I created some 9 weeks ago.  This running is near 90% of effort and should help you legs improve their ability to remove the lactic acid for the longer marathon race pace run.  My schedule called for one a week and I hadn't done one really since the end of January.

The dullsville night-time roads of Harpenden entertained my following training runs:

Tuesday: 8.5 miles with 4miles as a tempo run (my schedule says 6-8 miles at the moment)
Thursday:  7.7 miles with 3 x 1mile runs and a long cool down
Friday:  3.2 miles easy

Total (pre-marathon of 26.2 miles) of 18.4 miles.  Will continue to crank up the distance of the tempo runs and reduce the hill reps.

I thought I had overdone the running in my prep - but was I going to Bonk or not?  As I write this, I am awaiting the race results for a race report.  Once received, I will write up a race report.  Of to Tulsa in the morning for 3 days - back on Friday.  I will be missing Sophia's 7th birthday - but at least I was around for the 18 kids who descended on our house on Friday afternoon.  Hopefully by my return, Kate will also have recovered from her injury that has meant her limping about since Friday.....