A great day

I've had a great day today. I went to the place where they do the Coast to Coast bike ride, and Graeme and I did a fab 14 miles there. We did a 10:2 run/walk split and it went very well, with an overall pace of 10.30mm (I also wore my XL vest). I definitely need to do a run with more than the one minute walk break in, as today was much better then last week. From 2.2 to 7 miles it was just ever so slightly "up" the whole way, so there was a nice negative split when we got back due to all the downhill running in the second half. I was surprised to see we had ascended 573ft in that first half, and there was literally no flat or downhill parts to it at all, so I feel like it was a really good training run on a mixed surface (probably about 60 percent on trail, 40 on road). The one thing I found was, just before the turnaround point... had I been on my own, I may have took a little extra walk break here and I would also have probably took one about 1 hour 55 minutes in too (we were both knackered and ready for the next walk break at the time for some reason), however, being with Graeme was quite motivational as I didn't want to have to tell him I needed to walk. I did of course admit this once we were done, and he congratulated me for keep going. He said he really loves running with me and would like to do it again. Next week I have to work, so it looks like he is going to come with me and we are going to run the 15(ish) miles home. It is a very tough route so it will be another really good training run.

So, I've been on a bit of a high since finishing the run because I feel a great sense of achievement as I haven't ran this far for 5 months. We also went shopping and I got myself some lovely Oakley sunglasses (to replace the glasses I lost last week), and I also got a new white top, new 'race bag' and some black shorts. The top is very very light and comfortable looking, so next time it is a really really hot day I am going to try it out on a run. If it is comfortable enough I will wash it and put it somewhere safe ready for India!