Another one in the bag

My second Friday afternoon off to get a long run in daylight ticked off, but due to an enforced visit to Argos in Bratfud tracking down "hard to get" toys for Christmas, and the nightmare that is Saltaire roundabout I wasn't ready to go til 3:30, by which time the glorious sun had started to dip and the air was getting colder.

Nevertheless, hatted and gloved, I set off towards Halton East at a comfortable pace.  Something very odd has happened to my HR monitor because I was hardly out of breath and it was showing a HR of 170 - which is pretty close to my maximum.  Anyway, I don't use HR to measure effort, so I carried on at what felt comfortable.  5 miles is Bolton Bridge, which came and went with darkness fast approaching.  I turned down the Nesfield road towards Ilkley, thinking that come February and March this point will be about the 1/4 and 3/4 mark on my long runs when I'm up to 20m+.  Gulp...

I was having all sorts of niggly aches all the way round today - a bit in my shin, then a bit in my calf, then a bit in my thigh - nothing particularly painful, just irritating.  Probably just the effects of getting used to running longer distances again.

I'd decided to turn round at 1hr and see where that got me to, and it was pretty much bang on 7.8m, which is slightly past Nesfield.  I duly turned round and set off home, which turned out to be hard work, mainly due to it being pitch black and lots of uphill!  Still, the watch hit the 2:00 mark with home in sight, so not a negative split but not far off even.  I ran along past home to get the full 16m in, so overall I finished in 2:04 at an average pace of 7:45, which is a minute slower than 3hr marathin pace, so probably what I should be aiming at for long runs.  Legs feel feel fine, so I might do one more 16miler before upping the distance to 18m in Jan, aiming for 20milers in Feb and March.

The pic above is the readout of my Garmin - and you can see the HR seems very high (red line), and in fact leaps up massively just before 2 miles - but my effort didn't feel like I was working that hard.  Think I'll change the battery in my strap and see what happens.

Glad to have another longer run in the bag, and that I'm starting to feel like I'm getting some discipline into my training again.  This'll be another 30+ mile week, which is pretty good for this time of year.