Thursday 5 August 2010

Day 54 - Thursday 5th August: Stanford - 7 laps

Run: 7.62 miles
Time: 59 minutes 59 seconds



This evening's plan was a brisk 60 minutes, so I decided to run 6 laps of the 1.1 mile circuit round the village, thinking at about 9 minutes a lap I could add an extra 5-minute loop at the end to clock up the hour. To make sure I did brisk laps I thought I'd run a couple of sections a bit faster than the rest - the first up the short stretch of "hill" up Glebe Road, and then a longer section from the turning of Joyces Road down along the A417 past the Horse & Jockey to the High Street. I took the first lap "steady" and was pleased to run the first mile in 8:08, so tried to up the pace, with the faster sections on the next lap onwards.

Could I make all 6 laps at an 8-minute pace? At this rate I can also easily run another half lap and cut through the new estate to get back home in the hour and that would be over 7 miles. As each lap passed I expected to need to slow down - having only run this kind of pace over 5 miles before. Or I'd have to stop when crossing a side road to give way to a car coming in or out, and this would throw my pace right off, but luckily the only car I saw, saw me in good time and stopped to wave me on, so I barely missed a beat.

Things just got better and on the "last" lap, number 6, I worked out if I cut through the footpath and up Church Path, then I should just about be able to make most of a 7th lap too, so I went for it. The 7th lap was hard to start with, I could feel I was flagging. The sprint up the short hill knocked me for a bit, I could feel myself wobbling as I was running further than planned (and faster), but I ignored my inner doubt, and just told myself to get on with it, it wasn't far to go. Keep it up and I'd make 7½ miles in an hour. So I kept up a good pace to finish, and managed another sprint up Church Path, less than 30 seconds to go to get home... and I made it all the way back home, with 1 second to spare, even avoiding being run over by my brother-in-law.

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Running 13.1 miles in memory of Carl

I ran the Silverstone Half Marathon on 15th March 2009. I managed the 13.1 mile course in 2 hours and 4 minutes. Not a bad effort for my first Half Marathon! I returned in 2010 to run it in 1 hour 54 minutes, and plan to do it again in 2011. I decided to run this in aid of The PSC Trust and PSC Support in memory of my brother Carl, who died from liver failure in November 1997. If you'd like to sponsor me for this - please email me at pscrun@ulen.me.uk PSC Trust
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