Long distance Eve - 20 miles and still smiling like a Percy Pig

Amazing what you can do when everything just feels right.

Last night I consumed a healthy repast of grilled salmon, green lentils, new and sweet potatoes. Had a good sleep with a bit of a lie in. Popped a few ibuprofens to help knock the edge off my sciatica. Drank some Lucozade with carbohydrate and electrolytes and popped some into my Fuel Belt bottles for the long journey ahead. Now, here are the 2 other things that I think clinched the deal between my legs and the road on this my longest training run to date...

Sunshine + M&S Percy Pigs

Now I know tons of seasoned runners swear by Jelly Babies but by treating yourself to a Percy Pig every half an hour not only do you give yourself a little lift when you see his smiley face looking at you but you give yourself a competitive advantage of 5 calories and 2.3 grams of carbohydrates ahead of any babe made of jelly. I'll go for that! In addition there is no 'baby dust' to contend with so you can keep your running pouch clean. Bonus.

All these things together seemed to combine to make a good formula for my longest run ever - 3 hours and 13 minutes to do 20 miles.  Because I'm such a huge fan of the Ironbridge Half route I did that again and slapped another 7 on top of that, the last couple being uphill which I have come to learn is the quickest way for me to improve my performance overall.

I wasn't as shattered after this run as I thought I'd be and for the first time the feeling of utter dread and desperation about the marathon seemed to subside a little knowing that I'd only have to find enough juice to keep me going for another 6 on the big day...only...ha ha!

Ennstone 7 Wrekin Road Runners' Race 14/02/2010

Ouch!

Firstly, I wasn't expecting the Wrekin Road Runners Ennstone 7 race to be preceded by a mile long dash to the start of the race (my fault as I arrived a little late and the car parks we full so ended up parking outside my office) and secondly I wasn't anticipating quite so many hills in the race.

Still, what better way to spend Valentine's Day than to spend it dashing around Telford Town Park in the lovely morning sunshine?

The Ennstone 7 race is a really well organised race with a clearly marked out route, excellent marshalling, a couple of water stations and best of all; a cup of Kathy's wonderful hot soup to look forward to at the end, plus a medal for all finishers.

I thoroughly enjoyed this race, probably as the sun was shining, there was a strong turnout of happy runners and the route itself is really quite pleasant. Something that you don't see on many races is a talking Stegosaurus, but this race takes you right past several talking dinosaurs in the children's area of the park. All of the route in on hard surface utilising the park paths and the start and finish of the race is a lap or so around a track, or bowl. There are several hills en route which are quite manageable but the one at the end is a bit of a killer, however, I managed not to walk it so it can't be that bad.

This was a good race to include in my marathon training schedule, although it did hit me half way round that it is only 9 weeks until my very first marathon, the Shakespeare Marathon at Stratford upon Avon on April 25th 2010. I know I have some serious training to do for that as I can really feel the Ennstone 7 in my legs today :-)

Thank you Wrekin Road Runners for putting on a great race, see you at training on Tuesdays/Thursdays.