20 Mar - Well on Saturday I did my longest training run - 60km in 6hrs 50 min! I was joined on my mamoth run by several endurance friends who took turns to accompany me either on bike, horse or running with me. Also David met me every 8km with the car where he had laid out on a table different drinks and food to tempt me. As I was running around a lake when I finished I went and stood in it for 15 minutes fully clothed! I did get some strange looks however must have worked as my legs felt quite good the following day. Only 5 weeks to go......
15 Feb - This last weekend I completed my first Ultra marathon as part of my training for the Comrades marathon. On Saturday I ran the London Ultra 50k race, this took place going round the Capital Ring starting in Streatham and finishing in Wembley. As I have never run over a marathon distance before it was very much entering the unknown - I was pleased to finish in 5hr 44 min having got lost a few times as the marking was a bit erratic in places. Being quite competitive I was very pleased to finish 115th out of 188 starters only 53 were under 5hrs. And was 15th out of 35 women taking part!
It was very similiar to doing an endurance ride. We had aid stations every 10k which offered water to drink and food. Having done a few 160k ERs, I treated it the same. I ran from aid station to aid station, not thinking about the overall distance and that kept my moral up quite high.
My legs ached that night, however today I have ridden out for a couple of hours and walked the dogs for another hour, but quite relieved that I have a few days off from running to give myself time to recover before getting back into the long runs again.
30 Jan - Training has been going well, although has needed a bit of imagination as to where i have been able to run with all the snow and ice we have had in January. My mileage is increasing quite considerably and am doing a lot of 'back to back' runs i.e. a long run on saturday and sunday. I had entered the Gloucester marathon on the 24th Jan as part of my training, but was quite worried as to how I would cope as had not tapered as would normally do, and had done a 10 mile run the day before. The day dawned very cold but sunny. I was surprised at how good I felt. The course was run over three laps, quite hilly in parts, and I felt good even on the third lap and managed to overtake quite a few runners. I purposely hadn't taken a GPS with me as the aim was to run it comfortably and not go for a time, so was pleased to finish in 4hr 26 just 13min short of my PB.
6 Jan - Snow and lots of it has stopped me running today as I am snowed in! Agh.... I am now well into my training for the Comrades marathon. Last week I ran in total 45 miles which is my highest weekly mileage so far. I am now doing back to back long runs at the weekend. So last weekend, I ran for 1hr 30min on the Saturday and 2hr 30min on the Sunday. These weekend long slow runs will gradually increase. Coping OK at the moment with the mileage but having problems finding roads to run on that have no snow and ice. Luckily the B road from Guilsfield to Ardleen doesn't have too much traffic and has been fine to run on. Tomorrow I am going to attempt to run down to Guilsfield (4 miles) do a run of about 5 miles, get some milk and then run the 4 miles back up a very steep hill!
It seemed like a good idea at the time - however I wonder whether I will still think so when I am running the Comrades Ultra Marathon on 30th May 2010!!
The Comrades Marathon is 56miles to be run in under 12hrs in South Africa. www.comrades.com
Having now run 2 marathons - London and New York it was a case of what next...
Now the training begins.
I am also going to try to raise some money for the Multiple Sclerosis Resource Centre, so if your life has been touched by people you know that have MS please donate some money to this great charity.
Thanks for taking the time to visit my JustGiving page.
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Many, many thanks
Tricia x
