martinlittle.com:thinkThin

Yesterday was a big day for me. My place in the Berlin Marathon is still booked, but due to work and time in California, I was most definitely undecided as to whether or not I was fit enough.

On Thursday, my first session back with the running club (here's the route), I felt SO out of shape, and when I got home, my left knee had swollen. After a day of compression bandage, things seem OK, thankfully.

On Saturday night (more on that later) I managed to stay completely sober, then I had a good long sleep into Sunday. Breakfast was a banana and some sports drink, then I did plenty of stretches, filled my trusty CamelBak with water and loaded it with bananas and muesli bars, then headed out the door, with the aim of hitting the magical 20 mile mark.

My route was really quite random; I didn't want to get on to the cycle path to Balerno too early, as it is too short, so I wandered down by Kings Buildings, then Newington, round the Meadows a few times, then on to the canal path, instead of the cycle path, which just goes and goes. Here's the entire route.

During the run, I took a break after 10 miles (1hr 30mins) and ate some banana and a bit of cereal bar, then again at 16 miles, which was as far as I've ever run before. My CamelBak provided constant hydration, which undoubtedly helped.

The final total for my run was 20.4 miles of running in 3hrs 4mins, and then half a mile of very gentle jogging and walking, to cool down. The coach at running had advised me to aim for a four hour marathon pace, just as something to keep me focussed (although my stated goal is simply to complete the thing!). That works out at 6.5 miles/hour, which means yesterday I actually managed to run ahead of that pace. Crazy.

Last night I slept like a log, and today I feel pretty good, perhaps some kind of running high. My legs feel tired, but absolutely nothing like the broken mess I was on my previous longest run, thankfully.

What all this means is that Berlin is currently ON! From here on in, my runs are meant to be pretty light. Next weekend I'm doing the Capital City Challenge 10k race around Edinburgh with Neil. During this week I'll mostly be going to the gym for cycling and swimming, and then eating a lot. Perfect! Ahhhhhh...