13/05/2012 Now I can taper

Last Saturday (5th) was my longest run so far – 18 miles. It went pretty well with only 2 unplanned short walks on the steeper slopes as I was nearing home. I needed to put in a couple of pit stops, so the first 6 miles was an out-and-back from home, a quick drink, then off again. I headed towards Cheltenham with some change gently jangling in my back-pocket. At the 12-mile point I stopped at a garage to buy a drink. The blackcurrant Lucozade sports drink in the fridge looked appealing so I took that, then on reaching the pay-counter I saw they had some bananas at 47p each, so I had one of those as well. Too late I discovered that the Lucozade was a fizzy version – you don’t want that when running, but I needed the fluid so drank some, ate the banana and set off again. Needless to say that by 14 miles I was burping my way out of Cheltenham ! Another lesson learnt. And for some reason 23p in change makes more noise in your pocket against a phone than £2.50. I took the money out and started to run with it in my hand, but the small coins felt awkward and uncomfortable. What to do? You don’t see beggars in the middle-class housing estates of Cheltenham and if I offer it to a passing kid, they’ll think I’m some sort of pervert. So I left it on a post for someone to find. 

But the run went so well I decided to enter the Hereford Half Marathon on the 13th as a bit of a warm-up and some practice in a race environment. I ran it today and it was great. The route through the Herefordshire countryside on a sunny day was fabulous. Over the last few training runs I’ve gradually been getting quicker, but I’ve still not got back to the pace I was running last year, so I wasn’t expecting a great time – maybe a 2:10 or a 2:15. But at the 10 mile marker my watch said 1:32 – far better than I expected. Could I push-on and do the next 3.1 miles in under 28 minutes for a sub 2-hour? I knew I could – but I decided almost immediately not to try, this was just training and I was already doing better than I expected, so I held back to save myself for Edinburgh. I finished in 2:00:46 with plenty of energy left. I got the souvenir T-shirt, put the top down on the car, and drove home in sunshine feeling delighted. Then I cut the lawn and did the gardening !

I can now start to taper and build up my strength for Edinburgh, so just 7 miles next weekend, and after that its the big one.