An unexpected long run

Today was a rest day – I needed it…

I decide to organise a long run today with the running club, as there wasn’t set to be one due to it being outside of term time. I only received one reply to the email I sent out; however this morning 5 of us met up.

It turned out that the other 3 usually run with the training group rather than the EZ group like myself. This meant that they were accustomed to running further and faster than the EZ group. I managed to keep up with them relatively comfortably most of the time.

We ran up the river and upon reaching the initial turn around point I still had the energy to continue, so 4 of the original 5 carried on. At this point the route was noticeably muddier and hence slippery again in my shoes of inadequate grip.

It seemed that the others chose the route with the most mud, as I thought we would be running through the villages up that way, but instead we headed along tracks and footpaths and through fields.

When we were nearly back I decided to nip off to work and collect my bicycle that I had left on Friday night after the lab party, adding an additional 3 miles or so to the route. It was at this point that I started to struggle, but I kept myself going with the thought that it wasn’t far.

The total was 21 miles in 160 minutes with a pace of 7:38 minutes/mile. This is the sort of pace I really want to be aiming for in my next marathon, whenever that will be.

There may be more running tomorrow morning if my legs can take it…