Kenyan Hills and My First Half Marathon Distance

We had a night out with with friends down in Barnsley on Fri - 'Great lasagna and chocolate pancakes Trin'. This meant that Sat was spent eating fry-ups and drinking gallons of water in order to cure the hangover.

After getting back home about 4ish, I headed downstairs to the gym for some Kenyan Hills still feeling pretty groggy. A couple of weeks ago I'd dipped out of the hills, so this was my first attempt. At first I thought I'd give the hill program a go on level 20 at 12 kph. Well, after 2 Min's of this I was hanging on for fear of producing an outtake from SAW or HOSTEL. In other words it was a bit too hard, so I started again. This time with the speed and incline under my control, I increased the gradient to 8.0 and went at 11 kph for 2 Min's before resting at 10 kph for 1 Min and then repeating. All in all I completed 10 sets of 2 Min's, including the mad dash at the start. This was pretty exhausting. Not quite as tough as the threshold training, but not far off.

On Sunday I woke up reasonably early and headed out on the week's long run. The sun was beaming but the water was still frozen in the shady parts. All in all it was a great morning for running. Joanna came along for the first 1.75 miles. This was the first time I'd run with anyone else during my training and I felt a slight sense of loneliness as she turned back for home and I carried on up the canal.

I reached half way - 6.75 miles - in 1hr. As I turned around I thought about every step now taking me closer to home, and how this thought might help me during the marathon. At this point I felt fine, my breathing was steady and my legs still felt strong. This continued up until about 11 miles by which time I was feeling the strain of increasing my pace. The last 2 miles were tough but when I made it to the end of the canal I'd completed the half marathon distance - 13.1 miles - in 1hr 52Min's. I continued home at a sluggish pace and completed 13.44 miles in 1hr 55Min's.

I felt that for my third week of training this was a good achievement, but the more I run long distances, the more I'm starting to realise just how far 26.2 miles is.

Gareth