W8KW#3 - Long Run

Once again, failed to get out for a (long) run at the weekend, so defaulted to Monday night. Plan for the long run was 16 miles at MP + 30-45s, so for me that's 10m 43s to 10m 58s per mile.

Set off, same as last week determined not to look at the Garmin for as long as possible. Another tactic I used was to take a different route than normal, so I didn't know the distances at certain landmarks just to keep me on my toes. As I wasn't using the GPS, just set off at what felt like a normal pace and let the body dictate.

The route was pretty un-inspiring, pretty much flat as a pancake and with some dodgy paths and no lights in places (as I was heading out of Cambridge between villages). I almost ate path on two occasions but thankfully avoided any serious problems.

First glance at the watch was when I got back into Cambridge - I'd figured I'd done a nice distance and basically needed to decide if I needed to start heading for home or to extend the run! I was absolutely disgusted to note that I'd only clocked up a little under 8 miles. The only upside to that was that I'd actually done it at quite a good pace - averaging 9m 33s per mile, considerably faster than my target pace.

Things started to get a bit tougher after this, with the miles clocking up agonisingly slow - I kept making deals with myself, hoping \ willing myself to the 13.1 mile mark and a non-stop half marathon. In the end, I ended up doing 11.25 miles before stopping (1hr 50m), still a non-stop PB.

My pace was slowing down a fair bit though but I was still looking at a HM PB - I started into a run \ walk and eventually crossed the HM mark at 2hrs 11m 28s - 92s faster than my Reading Half Marathon PB. I'm pretty sure with other runners and a crowd, I could do better :)

Struggled on until 15 miles but called it a night at that point - I was pretty tired and starting to get miserable (runners nipple!).

Overall: 15 miles, 2hrs 35m 26s (10m 18s per mile)