Day 57 - Sunday 8th August: Hanney 12 + 2

Run: 14.06 miles
Time: 2 hours 17 minutes 00 seconds



I left my weekend long slow run until this evening, and set off towards Hanney planning to run 12 miles (6 miles there and back), followed by a couple of miles running around Stanford when I got back. I chose this instead of picking a 14 mile route, as I knew dusk would be approaching after a couple of hours, and I didn't want to still be out on the road when the light started to go, so I needed to be back on the safety of the village pavements. Well it seemed like a good plan at the time...

Everything went well for the first 6 or 7 miles, I was averaging about 9m40s per mile, perhaps a bit faster than planned, but still feeling good. Once I'd passed the half way point, the wind against me picked up, which only served to make the second half feel a lot tougher, as now I was mostly running due west, so hit the wind on each exposed section of road. I also had to contend with the odd psychological barrier I'd set myself, knowing that on a normal run - at 7 miles I'd have just 5 to go. But today I know I need to run 2 more before I get home, which may not seem like much, but since I hadn't planned exactly where I was going to run these extra couple of miles, it made it harder work than otherwise it would have been if I was still out on the road.

When I got back to Stanford, I turned right, and it felt wrong. I felt tired and could quite easily have called it a day and headed straight home, in about half a mile, but I kept going. And going. And going. I ran all round the village to make sure I chalked up the necessary distance, and even put enough dogged determination into the end of it to clock my fastest mile of the run (after having not long run the two slowest miles too). Overall a hard run, but a good one all the same.