On Sunday I ventured down to Bampton near Shap to run the Haweswater Half Marathon. Really, I needed to do a long run this weekend, not a fast one. So I decided I would run 7 miles prior to the race, making 20 in total. I didn't get there soon enough though and only ran 4 miles, at moderate pace beforehand. In the event itself I set off near(ish) the front of the field but allowed dozens to run away from me before settling into a fairly easy sub 7 pace with a couple of lads I know well. The two were having a bit of a battle for the honours on the day and I let them slog it out, trying to chivvy along whichever fell behind. On the mostly downhill return from the end of the reservoir the effort began to tell a little and I was putting a decent effort into my running, although still nowhere near race pace. The last two miles I ran pretty hard, trying to shield my pal Popsy from the wind and get him home inside his course PB, which he did. Immediately after crossing the line and stowing away my £15 mug I set off for another 4 miles. These were very slow miles - initially due to being uphill, but then when it was back down to the finish again I was too tired to run anything but slow.
Monday was long dog walk. Tonight, instead of the scheduled 15miles marathon pace run I opted to run reps. My thinking was that I have done an awful lot of 10-15 mile runs recently at between 6:10 and 6:30 pace and I might therefore be better off trying for some decent 2mile efforts. I started with a single mile rep (5:55) which was uphill slightly and also a mild headwind. Then after jogging another mile out I ran a 2 mile rep back to where I began, 11:31 was a good time - bang on target, though I knew I would struggle to repeat this with the headwind effort to come. I ran the next in 11:42 which I was very pleased with. Finally I jogged back a mile then ran a final one mile effort to bring me back to the start point. 5:45 for this tailwind downhill section was a very poor result though.
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