The weather has warmed up a little bit and it has been dry for about a week, and what with getting onto the Great North Run I decided to skip the gym and actually go for a run.
Setting off from home I had planned a route that I thought would be about 6 miles. A loop into town and back that I guestimated would take me about an hour. I got all of my tech on, heart rate monitor, iPod, Camelbak, petzl head torch, and I set off.
Quite quickly, maybe about a mile into the run I got a stitch that had me contemplating a shorter route or maybe even turning around. I remembered a cross country race at my primary school when I set off like a rocket and was in the lead most of the way round, at some point a stitch crippled me and I ended up limping home blaming some fake leg injury for me coming in last. The shame I have carried since that day was self motivation enough to make me carry on.
What is a stitch and where does it come from though? I’m going to google that later to find out how to beat it.
Just past the point of no return I developed a bitch of a blister in the arch of my right foot. It really hurt (still hurts now) and despite adjusting my trainers and sock, the damage was already done.
I arrived home exactly 61 minutes after I left, the heart rate monitor reported that I had been maintaining a rate of 179bpm before the pain of the blister slowed me down and a rate of 172bpm after the blister developed. With an average of 177bpm for the full duration.
The heart rate monitor was beeping a warning that I was at 99% heart rate capacity and had over done it and might blow my heart up. I was fine and I think the little computer brain was being over cautious due to me incorrectly inputting my year of birth as 1940 when I first got the thing.
I mapped my route on the internet this morning and am quietly pleased that I actually completed 7.4 miles in my 61 minutes of running. To make the maths easy I’m going to knock off a minute (to account for the 30 seconds it takes me to leave and get back into the house) so I averaged 7.4 miles per hour over this quarter marathon distance.
Until the final jog down my drive I had more in the tank and could (baring that blister) have carried on for the same distance again but as soon as I turned down my road fatigue hit me and I walked the last few yards.
Street running is so much better than running on the treadmill, fresh air, ever changing scenery, I really enjoyed myself. There was also no chance of getting tired/bored and heading off to the Jacuzzi instead of finishing the route.
I have a limp this morning. My left hip aches. I am certain that this pain has been caused by the blister on my right foot making me adjust my running gait so I put more strain on my left leg.
All in all though I am really happy with how it turned out and am going to throw a couple of running session into the training mix every week from now on. Though as a priority I am going to have to invest in a really good pair of marathon running shoes that suit my running gait and feet.
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Impressive! If you really can maintain 7.4 mph for the full half-marathon, that's just longer than the 1 hour 45 minutes that is my target. I may use you as a pacesetter for the first 6 miles down to Ironbridge! Bear in mind that 2 hours of running is twice as far as 1 hour (University of the Bleeding Obvious); I found that the first time that I undertook a longer run, the last 2 miles (or however much further it was than my last longest run) was HARD WORK. Plus, read your nutrition book, it will say something about running out of Glycogen at about the ninety minute point, known in marathon running as "hitting the wall". You will need to be hydrating AND adding Carbo BEFORE you hit.
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