March 2015

[marathondan]

Week 12 of 18

It's all starting to blur a bit now. Apparently I did two early morning sessions in the week, but I don't really remember them. Just about the only variation is the music I'm listening to, which I will continue to document for my own sanity.

Conditions have been good recently, fairly dry and mild with the going medium underfoot. Thus I've been able to stick to the fields and hopefully protect my joints a bit. 

Last night I was out there again for my longest run of the campaign, indeed my longest run for 3 years, the 17 miler. The short bridleway connecting the two fields was firm so I was able to follow my long circuit of about 3.5 miles - so four and half laps would be adequate. There was no discernible moon, just the gentle glow of the urban sprawl faintly reflecting off the clouds. In my almost three hours, I didn't see a single soul, other than the odd car passing by where my route crosses roads. So it's a strangle and solitary world, plodding away in near total darkness (I've never replaced my lost head torch). There's 100m or so of broad woodland trail which is particularly surreal; I traversed that 5 times. And the alleyway on the way to and from the field, where at times I can't see my feet. I should mention that I did take a tumble, my toe catching the rutted bridleway at about 7 miles.

It may all sound quaintly eccentric and jolly so far, but it was bloody hard. By about 13 miles the game was largely up and I was taking a lot of walk breaks. After 5 minutes of so of this I managed to rally a bit, but at this stage I was doing well to get a mile below 10 minutes. It turned out that the route was a quarter of a mile short of the prescribed distance, but there was nothing left in the tank so I called it a night (this was around 11.30 pm). I'm putting the struggle down to being offroad; despite doing most of my training on grass in recent years I did all my formative running on road, and it's hard not to compare the two. I suppose coming in at around 4:30 marathon pace isn't too dreadful, perhaps until you consider that 5 years ago I ran a full marathon only 15 minutes outside that IN A FULL FECKIN GORILLA SUIT.

Ah well, onwards and... onwards. Legs are very sore today and I'm not sure I'll be ready for an interval session tomorrow before breakfast. Long run wise, just the 19 and the 20 to go now; I'm tempted to run them on road to speed me up a bit. There's also the matter of a "heavy gear" partial dress rehearsal to fit in.