Day 64 - Sunday 15th August: Hanney 15

Run: 15.01 miles
Time: 2 hours 26 minutes 46 seconds



This weekend sees the beginning of the end of my training. The first of the "big five" training runs: 15, 16, 18, 20 & 22 miles. Then a couple of shorter ones during the taper zone before I attempt another 26.2 miles in October.

Today's run began well, I was trying to convince myself to keep my pace down to about 10-minute miles so I could easily cover the distance, but by mile 3 I was feeling really good, and had naturally sped up a bit. Southmoor came & went and I was still feeling good. The wind was behind me on the southerly road to Hanney, by which time I was feeling a bit tired, but still pretty good. It was only on the road out that the run seemed to get harder, but I told myself there's "only 5 miles" to go.

I kept up a reasonable pace, just dipping over the 10-minute miles, but I was getting low on water, and at one point my legs really did feel like they didn't have the energy to run all the way back home, in spite of having taken two lucozade gels on the way round to keep me going (at miles 5 & 10). So I dug deep and kept going, and even managed to convince myself to speed up a bit, on the reasoning that the sooner I got back, the sooner I could have a long cold drink and a post-run strawberry flapjack.

That seemed to do the trick, and I made my fastest mile at the end of the run, which was doubly good considering how tired and mentally run down I was feeling by then. I think the problem is that I haven't got back into the habit of eating lots of pasta yet, which is what I've always done before by this stage in my training. I shall remedy that over the coming weeks as I enter the toughest stage of my preparation for Loch Ness.