35km road run OUCH

I am sore

Just thought i'd get that out of the way first.

Today Jesh & I started out at 8.30am with a 35km road run planned. Nice to finally meet the mileage goal!

Firstly, Jesh was coming off a night shift so that wasn't ideal. But sometimes you just have to fit things anyway, otherwise they just don't get done. And I think the decision to go straight from his shift, rather than wait till he had slept a few hours, was definitely the right one. It's much cooler, anytime before noon.

Starting in stoke we headed out to richmond along the road, then over to the cycle track and around through to Tahuna. We had kinda planned to do a loop around town but as we were going decided to change it to out and back instead. We didn't know that we'd definitely get the full 35km in if we looped, and sometimes out and backs are just psychologically easier. Not really sure why... i think it's just easier to know how far you've got to go.

First 20km were pretty good, hot, but I felt pretty good. We stopped at a dairy at 20km for a good 10mins to refuel. We weren't very prepared for this run and were only carrying a few gels each. You just really want something more 'foodlike' after a couple of hours!

Fuel = 1 x Mother, 1 x Loaded, shared between us. Cookie time for me, bumper bar for Jesh.

Our running time (not including stops for toilet and food) by 20km was 2:14. Not bad.

From then on it basically got pretty hard. Jesh was obviously starting to really feel it with having been up all night and from 20km on the walking breaks got more frequent and longer. We needed the walking breaks but man it made it hard to get back into a decent rythm. Need to do a bit more investigating as to the best tactics for using walking breaks in ultras....

It's weird having had the run over with so early in the day. I think it's helped to keep moving, keep the muscles from completely seizing up.

This weekend i'm definitely doing a double up. Not a big one. Will just aim for a short 6-7km tomorrow night. My legs will have had 30ish hours, won't be recovered fully but that's the idea. Get the body used to running on sore tired legs.

Thats enough for now. I'm trying to psyc myself up to get into the spa. Such an effort to move anywhere! I also need to stretch a bit more and spend some time with my legs in the air!