Back to it this week, and popped out for an extra run this week, on the Tuesday with a deliberate attempt at some hills. Only eight miles, over the back of Bowdens lane and around Parc Seymour – felt pretty much like it was all uphill. Quite a slog.
Wednesday saw an eight mile Redwick loop, at a slight tempo – kept it under 9 min miles for the duration, and then back to a normal 11 miler to take stock of the referendum!
Folks were up on the weekend, so out for supper on Friday, and a day out in St Fagens and Cowbridge on the Sat, meant a slight walk was all that was managed on Sat. Sunday however was another “big one”.
Initially planned to get around 36 miles in, but in the end was happy with 32. Set off at 07:00 (till not sure why Strava is putting an extra hour on my start times, as Movescount has is correct) and took the pretend coastal path out from Magor and over then under the Severn Bridge to Caldicot. Really nice morning for it, if a little hot, but the weather man had said it was raining at around 13:00, so I didn’t want to get wet.
Its quite an odd feeling doing a training run of over 30 miles, you know that you won’t or can’t run fast for the whole thing, and you also know you are going to be running for six plus hours, which when you sit and think is a really long time, but when you run it doesn’t really seem to be so long. My big concern on these runs is to ensure I have enough liquid, the first section is always “easy” and the water lasts fine, even up to the 15 or so miles I did this time, but after that it hits me harder.
Decided to stick a few hills in the return journey for the first section, and got back to the house at around 2hrs 30, got a pasty down my neck and a fair bit of water. Only in the house for about 10 mins or so, but the time just goes so fast. Filled both my bottles and took and extra one down my back, just in case. A bit of a stretch and off again – quite depressing ;o)
After stopping I find that the tops of my legs are very uncomfortable, luckily it smooths out after a mile or so, but it still a bit unpleasant. I figured that depending on water I would either get to a marathon distance or thirty miles on this section, so with that thought in mind it was plod plod plod on the reverse of the normal Llanevaud route.
At the beginning it seemed I had plenty of water, and the running was okay, slower than the first section, but okay – the worst thing at this point for me is boredom. I like running and thinking, and prefer it to the podcasts I used to use, as they really grated after a while, but once you have been running over three hours, you (or I) tend to think more about pain and darkness than good stuff – so I spent an hour thinking about what goodies I would buy for the real run!!
Walked up the Llanevaud hill as usual and had a snack bar, and most of the water – also discovered that I hadn’t been really sweating on the right side, but my bottle had a tiny hole in it – will have to write to them. “Mostly” downhill on the way back to the distribution center, and I had a choice of an extra four miles or back to the house for a fill up – fill up won..
Had to run around the block to get to 26.2 miles, and including the stop I think I was at about 4:45 for the marathon, so around the time running I did when I did it for real. Another 10 minutes spent re-fueling, although I didn’t really want to eat anything at this point, stretch, change of shoes and then out yet again!
Last hour to go, and it was a painful start, but actually I wasn’t felling too bad – a loop of approx six miles was all that was left, and although the speed was slowing, it was okay. Was very thankful to finish though, and at 32 miles it was inconceivable that I could run the entire thing again. But I thought I could have perhaps got to 40 today, then just almost a marathon extra and we’ll be done – very scary…
Cold bath and a lie down all afternoon – felt it quite a bit today, not just legs, but arms, shoulders and back. And sore feet “to boot”..
Miles: 58
Beers: Dozen or so