After the glorious sunshine of the last week, I'd put the suntan lotion out with the rest of my kit last night. This morning however was great running weather - if a bit on the chilly side to be wearing just a vest! It was overcast with a bit of a breeze and the temperature was much lower than it has been.
Sarah had planned another 22mile route so we wouldn't have to repeat the one we did a few weeks ago. Of course, we could have run the same route the otherway round, which does make quite a difference. Sarah's route avoided town, taking us through lovely villages on lanes with daffodils on the verges, so was much nicer.
We all started off together at a steady pace. Sarah and I found ourselves out at the front after about 3 miles but the others were within shouting distance at that point. Then at about mile 7, we realised we'd lost them. After a phone call, we found they'd taken a wrong turn but weren't too far off track luckily! Our intrepid back up team (Sarah's dad) found them and ensured they were on the correct route before coming to pick up Sarah at mile 10 (Sarah's marathon is one week before London).
At that point I was at least a mile in front of the others, which would have meant waiting for about 10 minutes to run with them. You got cold quite quickly when you stopped, so I decided to carry on by myself. It was good training for London as I'll have to pace myself then anyway. Sarah was by now driving the route to check we were all okay, so I could contact her if there were any problems. I tried to keep my pace steady until I got to 16 miles, when I upped it to marathon pace.
Well, I say I upped it to marathon pace (10m/m). My splits for the final six miles were: 9:33; 9:40; 9:54; 9:49; 9:57; 9:27. So I think I may be slightly improving on the pacing. If you ignore the last one as a mad dash for the finish line, then it only took me 2 miles to get into fairly near target. I'm taking that as an improvement anyway!
The total distance was 22.44 miles and it took me 3hours and 48minutes.
I took 3 gels this week - one at mile 6, mile 12 and mile 18. Not sure about the third one as my stomach has been churning all afternoon! My legs are okay (I have done the dog walk and bath routine). One toe on my right foot is tender but there are no blisters. The vest was fine and didn't rub, neither did my massive bum bag. I did forget to put the red laces (the British Heart Foundation receives a donation for each runner who crosses the line with red laces in their trainers) in but I can test those next week.
That's the last long run done and the hardest part of the physical training out of the way. Now comes the mental stuff!
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