Week 5 / 9

I'm quite happy with this week's training. I did my "long" series at 16kph (while people were also being tortured on screen in one of the "Saw" films) which, only a few months ago, I would have struggled to maintain even for series of just one kilometer. Then I had the big one - the long run of 35km - on Sunday, of which 16km I was to run at Marathon pace. The route going out was uphill most of the way and quite windy, so it was difficult to get to actual Marathon speed, but my heart rate was more or less where it should have been and, the way back was downhill so I got some seconds back. I went through the Half Marathon mark at around 1:35, which wasn't too bad considering 5 kilometers of those 21 were at my much slower aerobic pace. Then the final 14 kilometers felt really easy (OK, except for the last few where I was feeling quite tired and looking forward to getting home). All told I did the 35km at a pace of 4:40km which was alright and felt a lot easier than the 30km I had done a couple of weeks before. One difference, apart from hopefully being a bit fitter, is that I decided to take gels during this long run. No aches or pains afterwards, just a nice all over tiredness which did mean it was difficult to resist falling asleep after lunch (which wouldn't have impressed our lunch guests).