South Shields to home

Today we left the house at 7.20am and drove to South Shields. Graeme and Paul dropped me off at the 22 mile point and drove on to the 18 miles to home spot, where I would meet them en route.

The first 4 miles were freezing as it was blowing a gale, and typically all on a slight incline. I was running to HR, wanting to maintain 150bpm and as I met up with Graeme and Paul, I could tell the pace was far too slow for Paul. A few times I urged them to go on at their own pace and I would just see them at home, but Graeme really didn't want to. I noticed early that he was struggling and seemed more than happy to stick with the pace. I'm afraid I've done all of my training very strictly, and I am in no way going to be pressured into running to a HR that is too fast this late in the day, so Paul ended up slowing down.

By 14 miles (10 for them), Graeme was shattered and as I walked to compensate, this was when Paul decided to just go the rest of the way on his own. It was quite good really, as he is much faster than us and he needs to concentrate on his own training in his own way.

The hills were tortuous, and the very biggest one I was most surprised to see Graeme managed to get 3/4 up it before needing to walk. Now don't get me wrong, I wasn't exactly flying up them with ease, but I was feeling better than Graeme was.

With 4.5 miles to go, I'd ran out of water as it was fairly warm by now, so we stopped at a shop and bought a bottle of water and a bottle of coke. Now, I have craved coke (drink, not the drug!) during a run for weeks, for some reason, so today it was like nectar. It tasted amazing, and I enjoyed it as much as I thought I would.

Graeme managed really well until about 1.5 miles to go when he told me to carry on as he was going to walk from there. So I ran most of the way (doing a bit of a fartlek session up a steepish half mile hill at the end). When I got home, Paul was waiting. He had done very well and had ran the last hill at 8 minute mile pace. We talked about him doing training on his own next week and he is definitely going to be running VLM at his own pace. He now has a target in mind of 4 hours!
Graeme wasn't too far behind, but has felt pretty dreadful all afternoon. Luckily some food has perked him up no end. I feel really good and haven't wandered around in a painful state as I usually do after LSR's. Could I be getting fitter?... I hope so!