Long run

So it happened….I ran further than I ever had before.  I ran sixteen miles *BOOM*

As previously said, I planned to run sixteen miles this weekend.  I had wanted to run from home to Hampton Court and get the train back on Sunday, after running or going to a yoga class on Saturday.  I ended up having a five mile trot along the river with my marathon-busting friend over Saturday lunch time, and then catching up with post-running coffee (for me) and an amazing looking sandwich (for her).  L has run at least one marathon a year since she was 20 years old, starting with the London Marathon.  As already mentioned, her best time is 3.14, so its fair to say she knows a bit about running and, perhaps more importantly for me at the moment, training.  I laid out my plan to run out and get the train back on Sunday and whilst she was massively enthusiastic about the distance, she was a bit worried about getting stuck waiting for a train on the wrong side of sixteen miles in the freezing cold.  Fair point.  So there was a slight revision and I decide to run bridge to bridge – Putney to Westminster and back.  Well, I originally planned to go from Putney to Vauxhall and then back to Hammersmith and home, but when I saw Westminster in the distance, I thought I might as well go all the way there, and see how much further I’d need to go on the way back.  Ended up doing another loop…but when that loop is sixteen miles, it turns out I don’t actually care.  Plus I went up one side of the river and back over the other, so there was a change of scenery.

I ran sixteen miles.  In just under three hours.  When I got back, I actually couldn’t believe it – it felt awesome.  It wasn’t easy, but I downloaded my audiobook – The Ghost by Robert Harris *immense* (I felt a certain amount of glee listening to this as I ran past MI5…) – and just kept on trucking all the way around.  My eventual split was just over 11 minutes per mile – not groundbreaking by any stretch of the imagination, but I did it, and I did it without finishing and thinking I might die.  I didn’t think I could have happily polished off an additional ten miles there and then, but the thought didn’t seem utterly ridiculous, which was obviously the point of doing the run.  The marathon doesn’t seem such a huge stretch in my imagination now that I’ve tackled this….

Oh and one important realisation this week – if you train, you get better.  Three runs this week and one longer one at the weekend works.  Not sure why this only occurred now, but you know, better late than never…