1h30 @ 70% MHR

We were in Belgium for the weekend celebrating a wedding and this run was set for Sunday morning after a late night, little sleep and a heavy run yesterday. It was not the most enticing prospect when I was woken at 7:30 am by the alarm to get the run in before breakfast.

I felt lousy for the first few paces. When I say lousy, I mean really useless. My legs were like lead, my heart wasn't in it and I just wanted to finish before I'd even started. It was only my commitment to the marathon training programme that kept me going. I had 90 minutes to do and I only thought about running as comfortably as possible and perhaps running 18km for the session, it was that bad. My Garmin showed 4'49" for the first kilometre and I was actually pleased. It felt as though I was running slower than 6' km pace and this was a distinct improvement. I thought that I'd try and improve slightly on this as I went on but it was going to be tough.

I was very tired too. The lack of sleep meant that I was running with one eye closed. Luckily the terrain was flat and my pace was steady gradually improving to 4'35" pace over the first 10 kilometres. I turned around and headed back the way I came hoping not to get lost in the process as I'd taken many small roads and numerous junctions for the first half. It was about now that I decided that I could possibly run 19km, despite having turned around at just over 9km.

The speed improved inversely proportional to the weather. As the rain got heavier, I moved faster and by the time I finished I'd actually run just over 20km in 1h29'47". Good to finally relax and enjoy my Sunday now.