500 days gone, 70 to go

Distance: 11 miles
Time: 2h12m56s
Mile 1 - 11m11s
Mile 2 - 10m57s
Mile 3 - 11m45s
Mile 4 - 13m22s
Mile 5 - 12m45s
Mile 6 - 12m12s
Mile 7 - 11m46s
Mile 8 - 12m34s
Mile 9 - 12m22s
Mile 10 - 12m39s
Mile 11 - 11m23s

This morning I made my last visit to the Leisure Centre on my week's pass to attend a yoga session there. It was much more basic than the yoga flow class I attend in Oxford, but it was interesting to go through some different movements from what I've learnt so far.

Then I spent half an hour in the gym, working my way through the machines again, strengthening all areas of my body: thighs, arms, chest, tummy, lower back, and legs - but only very light weights on my hamstrings and quads, repeating 20 times on each leg individually. Having finished on the chest press, I headed off home for some brown pasta for lunch.

This afternoon I set off on my LSR, long slow run. I chose the 12 mile route I have mapped out, but since the plan was to take only 120 minutes running at a "very easy" pace, I reckoned I'd make it to 11 miles and then walk the remainder back, taking a short cut to make it a half mile cool down. It was quite tough today, to begin with I found it hard to run slowly, as part of me wanted to up the pace to 10-minute miles, but in the end I managed to slow to a bit above "plod" averaging about 12-minute miles. Some of the time I felt I'd found a steady pace, other times it seemed a struggle. I was also conscious that my right knee felt slightly uncomfortable now and then, but never developed above a kind of tired feeling to anything at all painful. Whenever I felt my knee was uncomfortable I made more of an effort to lift my head, and lift my tail, improving my posture as I ran and this made everything feel so much better.

So I've now made it to 11 miles. The furthest I've ever run in one go. It's been 500 days since I started training to run a marathon, I've clocked up a fraction under 450 miles in that time. And now there are just 70 days to go until the big day itself.