Day 293 - Eight minute wonder

Type - steady run

Distance - 16 miles

Time - 2 hours 06 minutes 53 seconds

Each of the long runs that I take on in the run up to the marathon will push new boundaries in my running. The furthest I have ever run is only eclipsed by the next run, which will take me even further until we get to the final 26.2 miles. The runs up to the half marathon can be done without too much advance thought. Sure, proper planning may let you push out a much better run, but I think it is a distance that you can manage without too much difficulty regardless of how you have prepared before hand and planned during the run.

Sixteen miles is not a distance that you do with a similarly lackadaisical attitude. It is just too hard, you need fuel, water. You need to be properly hydrated and ready.

The last three miles are more difficult, the muscles in my legs burning and the pains in my upper quads spreading from left to right leg. But by this stage is doesn’t matter. I am two minutes below the target for an average of eight minute miles for the entire distance, a whole eighteen minutes below the upper limit for doing it in nine minute miles.

I still have just enough to pick up the pace for the last half a mile. Not much left, but enough to push out a couple of bursts of speed and a final sprint down Digby Crescent to finish. And what a finish. By the time I am done I have completed 16 miles in 2 hours 6 minutes, averaging under 8 minute miles for the whole distance.