In half marathon training Sunday always becomes long run day. A few of us had organized to set off from Bushfield at 8am. This time last year I would of sworn at you if you had made me get out of bed at 7am on a Sunday morning, but now I understand that needs must. Instead of doing our normal 9 mile Haddon route, we opted for something different as everyone is starting to get a little bored of it. We ran up to the water meadows behind Alwalton, across into Castor, down the old A47 into the woods, cross into Thrope Wood, Bluebell Wood, Orton Mere, Longueville woods and back to Bushfield. I really enjoyed this route and I think it really helps when you don't know where you're going therefore you have no concept of how long you've been running for or how long you have left.
After quite a grueling week my legs were feeling pretty tired but I need to get used to running on this feeling as I might feel like this on race day. I set off way to fast as I always do when I run with others, but Sarah reined me in and made me slow down. I felt really slow the whole way round, it didn't hurt or feel particularly harder than usual but I just never really found my rhythm. Pretty funny really as it ended up being my fastest long distance run to date.
We did 8.81 miles in 1 hour 39 minutes.
Mile 1 - 11:04
Mile 2 - 10:57
Mile 3 - 11:58
Mile 4: 11:48
Mile 5 - 11:44
Mile 6 - 11:14
Mile 7 - 11:48
Mile 8 - 11:31
Mile 9 - 11:14
It's great to see my pace not only improving but staying around the same mark, when I first started this was always up and down. Lets hope by the half marathon I can keep this pace up.
