10 Miles Marker

10 miles 1.47 mins

Yesterday I hit a landmark in my training 10 whole miles.

I was a little nervous because for me it was a biggie in my half marathon training plan, it was also a big one in my running journey.  Back when I first started out (this time and last year) when I could barely run for 5 minutes, and would be bright red and soaked in sweat in those first 5 mins, I used to be really paranoid and think everyone was staring at me, when I felt like this, I used to say in my head ‘for all they know I could just have run 10 miles’.  So it was with great pleasure as I finished up my run yesterday, red and soaked with sweat I could actually say, I HAVE actually just run 10 miles.  It felt good.

It was a good run, I’m not going to say it was easy, it wasn’t but it wasn’t agnosing, there were no tears, and any discomfort I saw as a lesson.  About half way (Camden market, which annoyingly you have to walk through to get back to the tow path) I did have a wobble I was very hungry (not helped by running past the food stalls in Camden market I might add) but like Forrest I just kept going.  The last two miles, I found myself lagging, my legs were tired, and I realised my posture was all saggy so I pulled myself up and put in a bit of sprint to assist that seemed to work.

The best bit was the end (not because it was the end) I had set Mr Nike to let me know every 2miles, and he told me I had two miles left, by this point I was back in Regents Park, and trying to work out which way to go to finish at my favourite finishing spot.  After a while I checked the distance and I had 1.2 miles left.  So I figured out a route that would take me to my finish line, except (I’m not the best at judging distance) before I was  even close to that finish line, I heard Mr Nike say ‘congratulations!’ I almost jumped out of my skin, I was so happy. 

What’s more, the end came much sooner than I had estimated (10 minutes sooner in fact), I was so happy. Although my long run pace is slow, I seem to speed up the further I go.  So this was 147mintes.  My only concern is that I try to work towards running times rather than miles (building endurance) so I should have gone another 10 minutes.  Still one more long run to go, there’s still time.

Yay, I’m so chuffed with myself, only another 5km to add to that.  I’ll 12 miles next week, then wind down to 10, 8 etc.  I hope that is enough to get me through.