Speeding up (slowly)

Recently I've been finding that while I've had a few good long runs, the short 3-milers in the week have been getting a bit dull. I'm never really sure what the purpose of these runs is, other than to keep me running regularly and contribute to weekly mileage. So on Friday morning, I decided to vary my route a bit. I've got a nice circular run from our house which I tend to stick to as it's exactly 5k, so it was nice to do something different, and I found that I was a bit faster than recent runs, averaging 8.27 min/miles.

It was a busy weekend, with work on Saturday and family visits, but this morning I managed to fit in a 12-mile long run. It was a cool misty morning when I set off, but by the end it was really hot and sunny. I was hoping to run around 9.15 - 9.20 min/miles, which would help me to improve my half marathon time in a few weeks, but I started with a couple of miles downhill, and they were 8.48 and 8.32 - too fast! It was a hilly route though, and I slowed down on the uphills. I started to feel pretty rubbish after about 8 miles (I think it was last night's curry and beer), but I managed to carry on, and tried to push the pace at the end.

When I got home and plugged in the Garmin, it showed that I had averaged 9.15 min/miles, so I was pleased with that. I felt very tired though, and not at all capable of running another mile.

So the miles are slowly creeping up, and this weeks total was 24.6 miles, 3 hours and 45minutes. Bring on the races!

Here's Robbie at the park last week demonstrating a sense of balance no better than my own...