23km Aerobic Run

As my car was being serviced today I drove to the mechanic in Gordon St and headed off from there around 6am. Bit of a hilly start through the Clifton area before joining the road out to Settlement Point. At the known km markers I was keeping a good pace at just under 6min /km before surprising myself with a really easy 5.15km. I soon realised why as I hit the turnaround and found myself heading straight into a stiff breeze off the water. I still did the return km in 5.45 though.

A few guys from the running group were finishing their run and heading for a coffee as I was heading back, but I still had a long way to go so no stopping for me! (wow, good effort – 4x2 letter words ending in “o” strung together) I made it back to the car in an hour to collect my stash of Espresso Love GU, water, hat and sunnies. I didn’t find the GU as palatable as the High Five that I had tried before – a bit thicker and possibly an acquired taste. But once it was down it was fine and no stomach issues. So whilst I didn’t feel the love to start with, it really did grow on me.

Continuing on through town, I ran along the river to Town Beach, then coastal to Shelly Beach. Seeing as I was back near home sooner than I expected I wound my way back around the Waniora area, picking up a Gatorade at the local shop which went down really well by that stage. Finished up in 2 hours 15 minutes then a 15 minute walk to cool down and some stretches.

Thanks lulu and blkbox…you were right and I woke up fine this morning. I felt pretty good through the run and afterwards. Obviously I’m feeling it a bit in the legs, but not too bad considering it’s the (another) longest run I’ve ever done. I was happy with my pace, and apart from breathing a bit heavier up a couple of the bigger hills to maintain some pace, for the most part my breathing was very relaxed. I remember thinking at the 1hr 45min mark (which is around where I’d like to be finishing the Half) that I still had plenty in me to either go longer or to have gone faster to that point. In fact, I put on a surge during the final 5 minutes of the run just to make sure I could push a bit harder after going for that long.

It certainly makes me appreciate it more when I read about some of the longer runs people do, particularly marathon and ultra runs. I know I can get there down the track, but it’s not bad considering that a couple of months ago I could count on one hand the number of times I’d actually run for longer than an hour.