Today I undertook another long run, the idea was to run 10 miles or 2 hours, I was meant to get up early and run early; this I kind of achieved, I had planned   to get up at 6 and then go running shortly after, however I actually got up at 7 and ran pretty much straight away. I had read somewhere that occasionally exercising before taking on any nutrition teaches the body to use up the glycogen levels and as such makes for a better run in the long term as you would not need to take on gels etc during the run.

So I got ready and headed out of the door; as soon as I began running I new not eating was a bad idea, as I started to suffer pretty much straight away and wasn’t even a mile in, with the Brighton Half Marathon booked for the next weekend, I knew i just had to keep going, so onward  plodded, and believe me when I say it was a plod, looking at my splits afterwards I saw how bad it was.

The only positive I could take from this run was experience of being on my feet for a prolonged length of time which would undoubtedly help on my next race.

Next week I will concentrate on a couple of short runs at a higher pace, and hope that this will aid in my half marathon run.

So today was the first long run, in fact as it turned out it was the furthest I have ever run, I had only set out to run 11 miles but wanted to get to Motley hill for my turn around.

I started off fairly solidly but by the time I was at mile two my legs started to ache, I put this down to the fact I had not run for a few days and pushed on, I carried on ticking off the miles and was soon at the Riverside country park. I generally felt o.k. Which is surprising as I was trying out a new nutrition strategy (Tailwind), I would normally have taken a gel by this time but although the legs were tired, I genuinely felt I didn,t need to.

At the start of the run I had packed two UD hard flasks which had Tailwind in, and as a backup a Solomon soft flask with water, all packed up in my new AK race vest ( review coming soon).

I got to mile 9 at Motney hill, and it was the time to turn around and head back, as I started back I realized that the two UD flasks I was using were nearly empty and would not last the distance back ( bugger ), I had estimated that each flask would last an hour and at this point I was two hours in and nearly empty, oh well all I could do was plod on and get back as best as I could, I managed to get half way back on what nutrition I had, in now swapped over to the backup water which managed to get me back home.

A quick walk around the block as a warm down, and I was done. For me this was a hard run as it was the furthest I have ever gone also I am still struggling with my fitness which added to the struggle; however done is done and it was now shower and relax.