Chester Marathon Training - Week 4 Run 3
I really didn’t fancy today’s long run. I woke up around 8.30am to have breakfast with the aim of going out just before 11am (I have to wait two hours after eating before running otherwise I get awful stitches), but I fell asleep on the sofa just after Mike went to work at 10.30am. I woke up again just before 1pm with a headache and the all consuming desire to just stay put on the sofa all day. I managed to reason with myself that i’d get up, take some painkillers, have some lunch and see how I felt around 3pm. The headache went and I was annoyed with myself because if I hadn’t fallen asleep, i’d have done my run and been home again by this time. This annoyance was the fuel in the end that got me out of the house for just after 3.30pm. Despite the headache having gone, I still wasn’t feeling 100% so I decided to just run and see how much of the 16km I could do before collapsing and either (a) ringing my Dad to come get me, (b) crawling to a bus stop and getting on the next one that went somewhere near my house or (c) phoning for a taxi and hoping that the person on the other end wouldn’t think I was messing around when I told them where exactly I needed picking up from. Thankfully after 2km the endorphins started to kick in like they normally do and I did the whole 16km with very little problems. I only had to stop to cross busy roads, drink and buy more drinks from a petrol station. I think I kept the petrol station guy entertained for at least a few minutes by having him serve a very sweaty and dead on her feet woman, who replied very enthusiastically with “I’ve only got 4km to go!” when he asked her if she was okay. I’m sure he’s seen much worse. I had a stitch come on, on my left hand side, just below my bellybutton when I only had 2.5km to go. I chugged down a lot of drink, put some pressure on it with my left hand and tried to slow my pace a little. Thankfully it dulled after a couple of minutes and didn’t bother me again. The highlight of my run though was this hill…
My recent training has only had me running down it on my way home from work but in previous marathon and half marathon training, i’ve spent many minutes of my time running up it and i’ve never quite managed to get up there in one go. At first I wasn’t fit enough but my last attempt saw me struggle due to a very runny nose that stopped all attempts at breathing due to snot all over my face. Lovely! This time I was determined to run it all in one go and somehow managed it whilst chanting “slow and steady, slow and steady, slow and steady…” to myself the whole way up. I’m very proud. In case you can’t see how steep and long this hill is, if you look at the picture above, the white point just a little further away than the car on the left going up the hill, is a person. See the zoomed in picture below as evidence…
It’s a 19 metre incline over 0.60km and it felt so amazing to run back down it knowing that i’d just run up it. I feel very proud to be able to say…
Jo 1 - 0 Hill of Death
After that 16km I feel like i’ve earnt the right to spend the rest of the evening on the sofa with my feet up!
Distance: 16.00km
Time: 1 hour 46 mins 28 secs
Calories burnt: 1233
Metres climbed: 114
Average speed: 9.01km per hour
Average pace: 6.39 min per km
Runkeeper link: http://runkeeper.com/user/joschulze/activity/102150035
