Twelve miles along the canal today, and it was tough. Perhaps it was last night’s bottle of Southern French Viognier (£4.99 from the Co-Op, good stuff). Or was it those two fried egg sandwiches I had for breakfast?
It was a pleasant enough day. Patchy sun, and fairly warm. There were a few swans about, and a heron on the weir. Quite a few walkers but no one else running.
The run wasn’t a disaster. Far from it. But it got tiring after 6 miles or so, and there were a few brief walk-breaks through the second half.
It doesn’t matter. Ihave to keep reminding myself that I’m not training for a marathon, even though I am following Hal Higdon’s novice marathon training schedule. So these runs are not critical; the programme is just a bit of scaffolding to hang a routine from. As it happens, just about all the runs have been done so far, and it’s all good preparation for the half marathons coming up in March. There shouldn’t be any need to go above today’s distance this side of those races. Twelve miles may be too long already. Normal half marathon training normally finishes around the ten or eleven mile mark.
If all goes well with the March races, I’ll have a go at Hal Higdon’s 12-week Spring training programme. It’s designed to be preparation for an autumn marathon schedule. I might even decide it’s time to step up to the Intermediate level.
Ooo-er.
