What Changes in the Week Before a Race?

 I wrote a blog yesterday about what a week before the race meant, and a big component of it was the fact I'm not drinking beer (or wine, or anything alcoholic, but I have beer in the house and that's what I have been drinking recently). I kind of felt like I was focusing a bit too much on that and there went on a tangent about snacks because I was hungry, so this is attempt number two. What has changed this week? Why is this week different?

This week I am more concerned by how much water I am drinking, the food that I am eating and being as healthy as I can be whilst not being completely in control of what I'm eating - yay for living with my parents - I'm cutting out things like booze that I know have a negative impact on my heart rate and my sleep quality and I'm trying to sleep better. 

Today, I went for a good long walk at a faster pace than I have been going out at, I got my running backpack out of storage - it's one that normally had a water bladder in it, but since it's a five-kilometer run and that would be ridiculous, it's just having all of the stuff I need for the trip to London and back - and started thinking about what I was going to wear. I also got my test kits (PCR tests for Saturday morning and 5 days after the race) and made sure I actually knew what I had to do with them (before realising the process is very similar to the process used for the lateral flow tests which I've currently done one of). 

The big things for tomorrow are taking the lateral flow test and making sure I use the short form of my name when registering the result (because I didn't think about that when I registered for the race, used the short form of my name knowing that it would likely be printed on my running number and then read in the instructions which have been sent out since that the race number name and test result names have to match, which is very logical, but still difficult when you don't use your legal name for anything because you don't like it) packing up the rest of my stuff into my run bag and making sure I know where everything is for the morning and heading to Lidl to grab myself some things to eat and drink on the two and a half hour train to London, the twenty-minute tube and then the hour train from Waterloo to the actual venue of the run. Oh, and then also get an early night so that waking up at four in the morning doesn't feel quite so despicable. 

Saturday morning, thankfully I just need to get up, get dressed, take the test and leave the package on the dining room table for my mum to post when she's awake at a much less unGodly hour, and then jump into a taxi into town, because there are no buses until about ten minutes before the last train I can get on which would get me into London at the right time. I also keep forgetting that I can't have caffeine tomorrow, which is going to be horrendous, but worthwhile. I also have a few other errands to run, so this is going to be a hell of a day. 

I'm partly writing this for those who are interested in what's happening on the day, but it's mostly because it helps me get it straight in my head what I need to sort and organise and what I need to do. I hate trying to be organised because I don't feel good at it, but I love writing lists and I love writing narratives of this is what I need to do and this is how I am going to do something to try and convince myself I've got it all in hand, and there's nothing to worry about. That being said, I have anxiety, I will worry whether I plan to the nth degree or not. 

So anyway, that's my Saturday and my Sunday will likely be about recovering from how exhausting my Saturday was, and I am a hundred percent okay with that.