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Long distance runner (up to 100 miles), blogger and obsessed parkrunner. Mum to one, currently taking a break from teaching to be that Mum of one!

Sunday 24 February 2013

Long run mojo is BACK!

I woke up at 6:20 again this morning.  One day I'm sure I'll catch up on all my sleep!

I'd planned a long run this morning.  It was supposed to be 15 miles at 10:30 pace.  Instead, I decided on 15 miles at an 'easy' pace and made a deal with myself that I wouldn't look at my watch to see my pace at any time.  I've had lots of issues with pacing on my long runs lately, often setting off too fast and not being able to maintain, ending up walking.
Had an EXCELLENT run - really enjoyed it!

I managed to find some almond butter in Tesco yesterday.  Everybody in America raves about this stuff as a pre-race breakfast so I had it on a toasted bagel.  I'd heard that's the thing to do!
Meh.  Didn't think it was anything special!  An extremely expensive and slightly more bland peanut butter.  I'll have it again though as it obviously gave me some energy for my run today and didn't have any problems with my stomach at all, like some breakfasts have done.

It had snowed overnight and there was a light sprinkling of icing sugar everywhere and I actually slipped coming off my steps when heading out.

I set out wearing my new belt I bought especially for marathon/ultra training.  The first time I tested it was on my run with Dan yesterday.  I played around with it a lot yesterday to try and ensure it wasn't either pressing on my bladder or my stomach.  Got there in the end!

Did lots of thinking on my run today.  Work is not a happy place to be at the moment with all the upcoming redundancies (rumoured at 20%), Mum's pretty ill, I feel like I hardly ever see Dan as work takes over my life, marathon training and being behind on housework.  I need to make some changes this year...

Anyway, I decided that as I had had a new breakfast, was testing out my belt on a longer run and also haven't had very many successful long runs recently that I would link together a few of my favourite short routes that all circled by my house.  I started with a 4.5 mile route, which led into a 2 mile route, another 2 mile route and then I reran the 4.5 mile route.

At 6.7 miles I took a rasberry High5 gel.  I got a massive race pack for free when I attended the MK marathon training workshop before Christmas and I seem to get on quite well with these gels, which I'd not tried before.  It took me three attempts at swigging it before I got it all down though!  Still need a bit of practice at that!
Around mile 11 I passed a large bunch of group 5 and group 6 ladies running my 4.5 mile in the opposite direction.  I knew they were going to be out today, but I didn't think till this afternoon.  Shouted out lots of hellos and Maria ran over for a hug before carrying on.  Having only recently moved up to group 4 I'm worried I'd still be too slow to run with Groups 3+4 at the weekends on their long runs - I think it would stress me out and I wouldn't enjoy it.  I'm a little faster than Groups 5+6 now though.  Luckily I quite like my own company on a Sunday, reflecting on the week I've had and trying to solve life matters!
Just after mile 11 I knew I had done really well and feared I would spoil it by forcing myself to continue to 15 miles, so made an agreement with myself that if I continued to my front door (knowing this was approx 13 miles) without slowing or making excuses I would stop there.  Stopped my Garmin, looked down and was very pleasantly suprised!  :)

Mile 1: 11:59 (Included my warmup)
Mile 2: 10:23
Mile 3: 10:24
Mile 4: 10:08
Mile 5: 10:19
Mile 6: 9:53
Mile 7: 10:14
Mile 8: 10:12
Mile 9: 10:13
Mile 10: 10:09
Mile 11: 9:59
Mile 12: 9:46
Mile 13: 10:04

Total cals: 1735
Total time: 2h 13m 45s

When I got in I poured myself a big glass of semi-skimmed milk.  Milk is so underestimated as a recovery drink!  I also snacked on a few squares of white chocolate I found in the cupboard.  (Naughty!)  I wasn't feeling mega hungry so just had a heated up bowl of Tesco vegetable soup with two slices of wholemeal bread and spread.  I followed this up with a Muller light yoghurt.
I'd said to Dan he could have pizza for tea but he ended up being late back from the footy so I just made myself a jacket potato with cheese and beans.  Yes, that is an entire can of beans in there and yes, now I do feel incredibly full!  I also had a white finger bread roll with spread to mop up all of the bean juice...yum!  :)








2 comments:

  1. Hello! Thanks for commenting on my blog.
    If you ever see the brand Carley's Organic then try their almond butter, it is so much nicer than the meridian stuff (which seems full of skin I think).

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    Replies
    1. I shall hunt it out and not give up hope yet! Thanks for the tip. :)

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