15th January 2007

2 Mile Run + 3 Mile Recovery = Home – Heanor – Home

Date: 15th January 2007

Conditions: Windy, Dry

Notes: Today id the fifteenth of January and that means one thing. It is eighteen weeks until the Edinburgh Marathon. That also means the serious training starts here. I had a good base building eighteen weeks and entered three 10k races and one Half Marathon. I know what race day feels like and I have trained in all conditions except snow. I have suffered with injury through not warming up and I have tasted the pain of speed training. Now it really begins. I am training for two full Marathons and one half, providing I get into the Great North Run. I am reading all the books I can find and am continually learning new training and race tactics. So here it is, the beginning of a huge year.
For my first session I wanted a light run to ease myself back into training as I had a week off to renovate my house. After a solid warm up I set off from my parent’s house towards Heanor. As I approached the mile marker I looked at my watch and saw that I was well under eight minutes. Now as stated in many runs before set out at a comfortable pace but found that when I looked at my time that it was better than my race pace. This tells me one thing, my race pace must be higher than I thought. Had I not contracted stitch in my last race I strongly believe that I could have run a sub forty five 10k.
I kept my pace steady through the second mile and I felt amazing as I ran down HGIE. At the bottom of the estate I came upon the hill at Thorpes road. As I approached the hill I told myself “Come on keep this pace, you can do it”. Low and behold I breezed the hill and still felt good at the top. As I approached the mile two marker I looked at my watch I saw that I had ran the mile in seven minutes and eleven seconds. Just six seconds off my PB, and this mile included a hill. The mile I set the PB on was relatively flat.
After the second mile I had to run to my house on Ella Bank Road and drop off a key for my mate to come and fit some lights, so I decided that I would not time the run anymore as it would incur a stop. I reached my house and after dropping off the key and doing a few light stretches I was off again. I continued down Ella Bank and then turned up Hands road to the grueling hills up to Heanor Town centre. As I reached Heanor I still felt good, yet a little fatigued. One of my friends lives in Heanor town centre so I popped in there to say hello.
A quick hello turned into two hours and by the time I was ready to leave again I could already feel my legs starting to tighten up. I stretched again and was off. The two mile journey home was tough. Running twice in one day is not advisable but I made it home without stopping. Once home I stretched out as my legs felt so weak. I will not fall into the trap of running once I have ran and stopped.
In closing I have taken that first step towards Edinburgh. Only one hundred and thirty two days, and roughly seventy five training sessions to go.

Positive: I ran my first sub fifteen minutes for two miles in a training run.
Negative: Running home after stopping for two hours made the return really hard.

Days to Edinburgh Marathon: 132

Fast Mile: 7.11

Slow Mile: 7.47

Run Time: 14.58



“Obstacles are things that a person sees when he takes his eyes off his goal.”