1 Apr - Oakley 20 mile

What a difference 6 days makes! :D
A gorgeous day to be running and a real result -  there's no way I expected to be putting in a 9:32 pace today and get such a good time  3:10:46 and a lot of it is down to Maria who ran around with me and kept me going. 
Being a dumb clutz 10 miles down the road from home on the way to Bedford, I realised I'd forgotten my Garmin GPS so wouldn't have an idea on pace.  I tried using the Mapmyrun App on my iphone, but the phone is a bit old now with a dodgy GPS and kept losing the signal.  At 14 miles it told me I'd only done 11 miles (not what you want to hear)  and it completely gave out when it thought I'd done 12 miles.  Thankfully Maria's app worked and the miles were well signposted.  I also had the best pace setter running with me as we chattered away around the course.  They say if you can talk when your running, you're at a comfortable pace, so with all our catching up from over the winter months, some might say we were running a little too comfortably (a few of the Marshalls made a few comments that they could hear us approaching ;o)  ) .  Ipods were banned from the race, but it was a little bit like having my own personal podcast (I suspect that Maria was the one doing most of the chatting & running at the 'comfortable pace though).


It was a lovely course, nicely undulating and I think that as my normal long run route has a 6 mile long slow hill, it made the smaller shorter hills feel a little bit easier.  My tummy was completely fine today, I had porridge for breakfast with a large coffee before setting off, and then a banana, a bottle of Lucozade Sport and 2 codeine tablets about an hour before the start.  I took 3 SIS gels on the way round  @ 6, 11 and 16 miles, the last was a caffeine gel, so I'd better stick to that combination from now on.  For my feet, I kept to my old insoles but wore the ball of foot pads and my home made pads on both feet.  They started to hurt after about 9 or 10 miles  but it was just about bearable, so stuck with it  without stopping.  Hopefully by next week I will be running with the new orthotics and will be a bit more comfortable.


Photo of us trying to look perky,taken on the second lap coming up the hill - Whose bright idea was it to have photos taken at the top of a hill???