I felt I needed to get into double figures on Sunday just to raise my weekly average. I did set a target of 1500 miles for the year, and I'm already well behind on that schedule, although the many shorter races I've been doing has contributed to that, and I was still suffering from the injury, so I expected to be a little behind and start to pick up, well, about now I suppose.
So I decided on ten miles, but rather than do the same 10-mile route I've used quite often recently, I thought I'd make the most of the decent weather and hit the canal towpath.
Keeping a pretty steady pace of around 8-minute miles everything was going well, not too stiff after Saturday's race, so before long I was thinking that, as the route was out-and-back I might extend it a little and go for 12 miles.
The sun was shining and it felt good to be alive!
Coming into the city centre and still maintaining the pace quite easily I decided to carry on to Farmers Bridge, just by the National Indoor Arena. I've run this route several times in the past and knew that by doing a little loop over Farmers Bridge and back over Saturday Bridge the route was near as damn it a half marathon distance.
My pace slowed to around 8:25 per mile as the locks got more densely packed and the path got more hilly (yes, I know it's a canal but it does go up and down hills - that's what the locks are for).
Leaving the city behind my pace began to increase again on the flatter, straighter sections and was averaging around 8:20 before I left the canal with less than a mile to go. From there I pushed on through the back streets and alleys and finished at 7:37 pace over the last half mile, and more importantly still feeling good.
Overall, 13.1 miles in 1:46:48 - averaging 8:09 per mile. The day after a sub-20 minute 5km and just a week after a competitive half marathon, that felt like a result!
I'm now looking forward to getting some more longer races in. Eight weeks to Hinckley!
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