One run at a time

Today was my first proper Sunday morning long run.

Portsmouth is a surprisingly small city, and finding even an 8 mile route to run took a bit of effort, my route was effectively a lap from north to south of the eastern side of the island. Plenty of seafront promenade and coastal cycle path was included so it made for a nice run with not only plenty of pleasant waterside views, but also a good portion of the run was spent not having to worry about roads, kerbs, crossings or traffic.

The weather was pretty much perfect today, a nice cool 4 degress, sunny skies and barely a breath of wind. Wonderful stuff.

I'd set off with intentions of making the 8 mile route I'd planned the night before in a time of 70 minutes, optimistic perhaps with Christmas memories still fresh in the waistline, but I always figure, if you're going to set a target you may as well stretch yourself a bit.

So with Green Day's live album beating away in my ears I set off at a smidgen over 8 minute mile pace for the first couple of miles, before settling down to a surprisingly consistent 8:30 pace for the remainder of the run. No negative splits today, but I'm more than happy with a nice steady pace like that.

Overall I hit 8.1 miles in 1:07:29 and not only smashed my 1:10 target, but also did so with an extra .1 of a mile thrown in for good measure too, happy days!

When I got in, I was greeted by my wife presenting me with a nice freshly made banana and Vienetta milkshake. I can tell you, that was the most appreciated, and most delicious, milkshake I have ever had. Milk is allegedly just as good as a protein shake after a long run so I can claim it was healthy and good for me too.

Sticking that time and distance into my marathon time calculator, it throws out a lovely sub four hour finish time of 3:54:12. Unfortunately marathons aren't run with mathematics, they're run with sweat.

It's intimidating to think that 8 miles is barely scratching the surface of the marathon distance, even after 8 miles it is still the best part of another 10k race on top of that until you reach the iconic half way point of tower bridge. Good job I'm not thinking of the marathon like that.

Instead I am targeting one Sunday long run at a time, and I have to have faith that the training plan I have compiled will get me there. For the next few weeks, all I will be targeting is a small increase on distance from the week before. Once I'm up to about 15 miles, I'll then be looking at a half marathon race, as well as the final push up the gruelling training run of 20 miles a few weeks before the marathon itself.

For some reason it's not recommended to bother training the last 6.2 miles. I guess you only need to run one marathon so why waste the effort in training?

Additional to that I am also heading out a couple of times each week for shorter runs (usually around 5-6 miles) and also throwing some hockey training and matches too to provide me with my interval type training. All good fun.