Great, the weekends here again, and the dreaded “big run”. Was all ready to do the run on Saturday this week, but was dragged kicking and screaming down the pub on Friday afternoon so decided to give Saturday a miss, as any dehydration is a real killer now that the mileage is getting a little high. So spent a lazy, raining Saturday watching Wales finally playing a little better, the Scots doing over the Orish and France winning everything. With an exceptional flare for marketing some guy dropped a new Indian take-away through the door in the afternoon, so that sorted din-dins – would have been rude not too.
Up and around at 7:30ish, had a couple of pieces of yesterdays vindaloo chicken, and a piece of toast and i was ready for the world.. Got the sat nav working and my new fabulous watch, which i bought yesterday – has a digital stopwatch which helps me know how far I’ve gone – and only £7:08 delivered from Amazon. Yeah – jog on that man.
So hard for the first 20 minutes as usual, everything hurts, shooting, stabbing pains from everywhere, but then after a couple of miles the rhythm sets in and you just plod on. Pretty much the same route as last week, which is great – it is almost perfectly flat and big enough with slight variation to give up to perhaps 21 miles with only around 2 miles you have to do twice.
Some guy running crept up on me around 11 miles in, he was on 14 and off to do 22, he was in the London run and was making it look easy. We had a quick chat where he said if I was in a club, and I told him that i didn’t actually enjoy running and that once the 26 is over that may probably be the last time I run these distances – he looked at me with disdain and ran off at a far old clip..
Met up with the Mrs just after that for replacement water and our youngest joined me on the jog for a little way. Just after they left we were up to 2hrs in, so checked the mileage, and Mr Sat Nav said 12.8 miles, so not too shabby at all. After 13 miles is where the hurt comes back. A half marathon is a long way, but very do-able – I quite like that distance. It’s when you stupidly run further, my feet really start hurting around now. Had been running with my shoes quite loose, so didn’t get the pain in the top of my foot, but just underneath. It almost feels like my legs are seizing up too – hate it!! ;o)
Anyway looks like just about 19 miles today in a little over 3 hrs – could i run another 1.5 hrs – no too long to wait and see!!!!
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Days left: 38
Confidence: 73%
Ability: 75%