I started planning my running for the week and realised there are about 4 days when squeezing in any kind of a run will be well nigh impossible. That added to a slowly rising panic about getting some distance done gave me the resolve to go out and get a long run in. I have 2 plans for 2009 running-wise. One is to do the glamorous Draycote water 35 miler which is 7 X round a reservoir somewhere 30 miles from Birmingham in February. The other is to do the Highland Fling 53 mile race late in April.
I've been googling training plans for 50 milers and am most taken by one shown on the US runner's world site, mostly because of its thoroughly demanding nature. It will take some adaptation as I don't automatically get weekends off work but I'm going to give it a shot.
I think my legs were still tired from Saturday's icy half marathon and the pace was slow. There seemed no sense in pushing it though.
I took a camera, mainly as a distraction, and also my ipod shuffle. I have recently discovered the genius playlists that you can generate on itunes and I am a fan. Our library on itunes is a mixture of Peter's and my music and ordinarily our two different tastes don't get along that well. Some of my music is a bit loud, dramatic and dark, or too dominated by "guitar and lyrics" for Peter's liking. His music can veer towards the repetitive, gimmicky and overly effete in my view. However, along comes genius and makes a playlist out of both our musics and I don't know how it does it but its great. The Fleet Foxes are blended with Jesus and the Mary Chain. Kings of Convenience meet Joy Division.
About 6 miles into my run I met Rachel and Jackie from club. If I'd had my wits about me I would have taken a photo; but I did not! We chatted about the club night out and the recent beautiful weather. They were on a lunchtime run and so were moving through a bit quicker. I let them go. Too early to push it.
I ran up the Water of Leith until I'd run a little over 11 miles and thought I better take some photos since I'd dragged the camera all this way. It was already quite dark in the trees as the sun was getting low. There were a few bits where the sun broke through which were lovely. I was loathe to stop though because every time I did my already stiff legs stiffened up further.
It worked out a 19.5 mile run in 3hrs 06 mins which is 9min33s miling. Its a while since I've done a long run so slowly but it was icy underfoot in places and I was tired and concessions must be made! My two fears for the long running ahead is that it makes me really slow or I get injured. I hope not. I'm committed now anyway. We'll see.
The second photo is a light thing on the ceiling. I'm making a collection of them.
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