Maidenhead Easter 10 review, human shields and the last long run

Heading into the last week of high mileage before London, my niggles were still worrying me but not as much as the fact I couldn't fit in a trip to the physio before my Good Friday 10 mile race. We'd discussed K-taping some dodgy bits but a job interview and another unexpected commitment put paid to that, so it was left to me to carry out homestyle massage and trigger point release to try and get me through the last few days.

My main concern was that I planned to do a race on Good Friday. The training plan said 10 miles at race pace, then 20 miles long slow run the day after, so I'd signed up for the Maidenhead Easter 10. I spent most of the week deliberating whether I was mad to race 10 miles with a dodgy knee and an explosive left calf, but then the weather was lovely and I needed to run, so I found myself parked in an office park in Maidenhead at 8.30am on Good Friday, ready to race.

It's a lovely race and I'm glad I did it again for a second year. It's extremely well organised, they have nice toilets at the start (if not enough of them) and you are very handy for your car when you finish and want to sit down! I decided I was going to test out the Virtual Partner function on my Garmin, to see whether it was something I wanted to use on marathon day. I set my VP pace at 9:30, which is what I'm aiming for in London, and headed over the start line. 

At first, you run a lap round the office park before heading out into the Berkshire countryside. This is quite good, because I find it helps you gauge much better what effort you need for the finishing strait. Once you're out into the countryside, it's a really nice route. There's one bit where you have to run on a narrow pavement near traffic and it's unfortunately the bit where I was starting to accelerate and pick a few people off, but otherwise it's a nice course and very flat.

The wind was quite evil in places, and I did have to employ sneaky cycling tactics at one point, tucking in behind a giant of a guy as we ran into a headwind, then whipping past him once we'd turned off to head for home away from the wind. Well, a girl's got to do what a girl's got to do!

I noticed that as the race progressed I was increasing the margin at which I beating my virtual partner. I couldn't decide whether this was good, as essentially I was running about 50 seconds per minute faster than I should in the marathon, but I felt great and was loving it (with no niggles!) so I just thought 'sod it'. I did restrain myself a bit, conscious I had 20 miles ahead of me in 24 hours time, but overall I just really loved racing on the day. I kept pushing to the end, cheered on by an Ealing Eagles club mate in the last 200m, and knew I had definitely PBed my 10 mile time. At the end of the day, when the results were up, I realised I knocked 6 minutes off my time in the same race the previous year to hit 1:28:02, so I really hope this bodes well for London in just under 3 weeks.

I could feel the effort I'd made in my legs when I woke up on Saturday morning, so I felt a bit nervous about the final 20 mile run. Still, it was dress rehearsal time, so I had my race breakfast at the time I would have on marathon day and planned to start running at 10am, as per 21 April.

It didn't get off to a good start as my Garmin pointedly refused to detect any satellite so I just decided to run blind and not worry about pace etc. I knew my route and didn't need to measure the mileage, so I would just go off the total time taken. However, about 2.5 miles in, my left valf had a tantrum and refused to go any further unless it was stretched, so I took the stretch time to faff around with Garmin and get it going for the rest of the run.

I won't lie, the 20 miles were hard. Miles 8-14 in particular were vicious. Richmond Park was dark, windy, empty and far too undulating for my liking, so I found myself having a serious moment of doubt in my ability to run home about halfway in. I recognised that the pain I was feeling wasn't bad pain, it was just fatigue, so I had to give myself a stern lecture about being a quitter. If the back to back 10 then 20 mile runs are designed to fatigue your body, then I can testify they work a treat! I was exhausted for the rest of the day and spent most of it lying down, either in a bath, on a sofa, on a floor or on a bed. But I did it, and I did it at a reasonable pace too - about a minute longer than my goal race pace, which is as it should be.

Best of all, the niggles did not get worse. If anything, the extra TLC I lavished on them seem to cheer them up slightly. So I think I might be ready for London now!

For now, it's taper time, which means eating as many good foods as I possibly can, staying off booze and spending a lot of time on the massage and stretching side of things. I'm still aiming for 5 runs a week, with a couple more intensive sessions to go, but I won't push it if I feel the niggles are getting worse. My goal now is to make it to the start (and finish) line intact.