Hi all,
As planned I went for my second run yesterday. In order to get some sort of comparison I did the same route as before but managed to finish 4 minutes quicker, despite stopping for a minute to try and tell some tourists where the Embassy School is (I still have no idea), so clearly not all my excuses were just being wingey. As this is currently my standard run in Cambridge it's probably worth going into a little more detail on the route.
From 6 Adams you go up the cycle path towards the vet school, over the bridge and almost to coton. You then turn left across the park and follow the path round to the second overpass. From here cross two fields and then turn left when you reach the main road. The fields are possibly the hardest part, in summer you're directly exposed to the sun for it's entirety. In winter it's worse as the ground turns in to solid clumps that stick to your feet and add extra weight. The first time I did this run, with a couple of other rowers, we had to stop for five minutes when we reached the road to remove the clods of dirt. Following the road will bring you back into Cambridge and then to where you started. Overall this is about 5 miles.
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Okay, so I've just checked my old mapmyrun routes and it's actually only 4.3 miles. Which is a little annoying as it means I'm further off the pace than I thought. However as someone pointed out to me this week that a marathon is 26 miles not the 36 I thought before (Thank you Simon) I'm probably still up overall. Map available here: http://www.mapmyrun.com/routes/view/13246448
The most important thing that I learnt from today was that if you keep going eventually things get easier. As I turned onto Grange road for the first time today I got a pain that seemed to be too high up to be a stitch but too low to be cardiac. Point is it hurt and I had a choice: keep going or stop, that simple. Obviously I went with the former or I wouldn't have a time, though there were steps when I started to slow to walking pace. The main method of motivation at this stage was telling myself that it would fade in another few paces or at the next big landmark. It actually disappeared when I passed the turning for the vet school, but that's not really the point.
The point is that it did stop, and I managed to complete a run that I probably wouldn't have done this time last year. I don't know if what I felt was the infamous 'wall' runner's talk about, or just the effect of too many cookies that afternoon (probably the latter). What I do know is that is that it's possible to endure much more than you think, and that knowledge can be used to push yourself further.
On a related note I'm considering adding a list of body parts that tried to kill me during each run. This already seems to be a theme of this blog, but we'll see if it becomes necessary in a few more posts time.
The other thing I wanted to talk about was hills. Although Cambridge is notoriously flat this particular route uses two overpasses, which involve going up and then coming down again (obviously). On the other hand Brighton is incredibly hilly, though I don't know if it affects the marathon route. As a bit of a geek (alright a lot of a geek) I was wondering if any experienced runners could tell me how best to deal with changes in elevation. This probably won't make any real difference whatsoever, except to make me feel better, but I figured I might as well ask.
The plan for next time is to do a slower, but longer, run on Monday morning. I'm currently thinking I'll set a 45 minute timer and then head out towards Baitsbite lock. When the timer expires I'll turn round and come back. Will try to let you know how it went later tomorrow.
Thanks for reading, and don't forget to donate to the NSPCC,
Nick
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