I'd planned a long run this morning. It was supposed to be 15 miles at 10:30 pace. Instead, I decided on 15 miles at an 'easy' pace and made a deal with myself that I wouldn't look at my watch to see my pace at any time. I've had lots of issues with pacing on my long runs lately, often setting off too fast and not being able to maintain, ending up walking.
Had an EXCELLENT run - really enjoyed it!
I managed to find some almond butter in Tesco yesterday. Everybody in America raves about this stuff as a pre-race breakfast so I had it on a toasted bagel. I'd heard that's the thing to do!Meh. Didn't think it was anything special! An extremely expensive and slightly more bland peanut butter. I'll have it again though as it obviously gave me some energy for my run today and didn't have any problems with my stomach at all, like some breakfasts have done.
It had snowed overnight and there was a light sprinkling of icing sugar everywhere and I actually slipped coming off my steps when heading out.
Did lots of thinking on my run today. Work is not a happy place to be at the moment with all the upcoming redundancies (rumoured at 20%), Mum's pretty ill, I feel like I hardly ever see Dan as work takes over my life, marathon training and being behind on housework. I need to make some changes this year...
Anyway, I decided that as I had had a new breakfast, was testing out my belt on a longer run and also haven't had very many successful long runs recently that I would link together a few of my favourite short routes that all circled by my house. I started with a 4.5 mile route, which led into a 2 mile route, another 2 mile route and then I reran the 4.5 mile route.
At 6.7 miles I took a rasberry High5 gel. I got a massive race pack for free when I attended the MK marathon training workshop before Christmas and I seem to get on quite well with these gels, which I'd not tried before. It took me three attempts at swigging it before I got it all down though! Still need a bit of practice at that!
Around mile 11 I passed a large bunch of group 5 and group 6 ladies running my 4.5 mile in the opposite direction. I knew they were going to be out today, but I didn't think till this afternoon. Shouted out lots of hellos and Maria ran over for a hug before carrying on. Having only recently moved up to group 4 I'm worried I'd still be too slow to run with Groups 3+4 at the weekends on their long runs - I think it would stress me out and I wouldn't enjoy it. I'm a little faster than Groups 5+6 now though. Luckily I quite like my own company on a Sunday, reflecting on the week I've had and trying to solve life matters!Just after mile 11 I knew I had done really well and feared I would spoil it by forcing myself to continue to 15 miles, so made an agreement with myself that if I continued to my front door (knowing this was approx 13 miles) without slowing or making excuses I would stop there. Stopped my Garmin, looked down and was very pleasantly suprised! :)
Mile 1: 11:59 (Included my warmup)Mile 2: 10:23
Mile 3: 10:24
Mile 4: 10:08
Mile 5: 10:19
Mile 6: 9:53
Mile 7: 10:14
Mile 8: 10:12
Mile 9: 10:13
Mile 10: 10:09
Mile 11: 9:59
Mile 12: 9:46
Mile 13: 10:04
Total cals: 1735
Total time: 2h 13m 45s
When I got in I poured myself a big glass of semi-skimmed milk. Milk is so underestimated as a recovery drink! I also snacked on a few squares of white chocolate I found in the cupboard. (Naughty!) I wasn't feeling mega hungry so just had a heated up bowl of Tesco vegetable soup with two slices of wholemeal bread and spread. I followed this up with a Muller light yoghurt.
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ReplyDeleteIf you ever see the brand Carley's Organic then try their almond butter, it is so much nicer than the meridian stuff (which seems full of skin I think).
I shall hunt it out and not give up hope yet! Thanks for the tip. :)
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