"The dream is alive, I can run up the hills every night..."

6.2 miles/10km earlier today (9.54/mile pace). Felt a little tired and it took me a while to settle into the run. Glad I got through it though, because later on there were BB's muffins when I went to Dundrum with friends.

Went to physio. Problems caused by the fact that if overpronation was an Olympic sport I'd be a potential medallist. Have to go back next week, and acquire a new pair of Kayanos ASAP.

My poor wallet

3 miles this evening as requested by physio. She'd put these inserts into my shoes, and they felt weird as hell. My legs felt like they got tired really quickly, but maybe that's just because I'm not used to the inserts.

Gonna go shoe shopping tomorrow anyway.

5 miles today, very easy (10.34/mile). Breaking in my new shoes and trying not to push it too much because I'm still a little worried about my knee. Meant to get out yesterday, but my sister decided to have a lot of friends over so I pretty much got stuck as babysitter. Did I ever mention how much I dislike 16 year olds?

It burns a little to know that I should have been doing my longest long run (11-12 miles) before the half today, but I need to take care of my knee really.

Now watching Dream Theater on the Download festival webcast, I think James LaBrie could do with being dragged out for some running!

Another 5 miles this evening (untimed because silly kirby left her watch at home, and forgot to set stopwatch on her iPod), still no knee pain *\o/*

Just realising over these last few runs that I should have changed my shoes about 50-70 miles before I did - I had ~370 miles on my old Kayano 14s and they were gone. The difference between the old pair and my new 15s is night and day. Unfortunately this also makes it obvious that because I'm an enormous overpronating fatass I go through shoes exceptionally quickly, so I think I'll grab another pair soon and rotate them with the ones I got at the weekend for DCM training. I'll probably need a third pair by the time October rolls around...

Last long run before the half today - 8 miles. (10.30/mile)

I took a gel because I wanted to make a decision on what kind I'm going to use for the half - I have a partial answer now. I will NOT be using SIS gels... took a blackcurrant one today. EWWWWWWWWWW. One of the most disgusting things I've ever tasted. The Gu lemon one I brought a couple of weeks ago was less gross, and I thought *that* tasted like lemon flavoured KY jelly...

In an effort to remind myself that "taper" does not mean "sit on hole eating Maxi Twists", I went out for 5 miles in the glorious sunshine this evening, at a relatively decent (by my standards) pace of 9.48/mile.

Felt fecking great. Happy birthday to me.

Multimarathon - this weekend! :eek:

Looking forward to it and terrified of it in equal measures.

Ran the half this morning. Honestly - given the conditions, I wish it had started at 9.30-ish when it was a lot cooler and more comfortable than it was at 11! I had gone into the race with the pace for a 2:10 half in mind (6.10/km - 9.55/mile) but knew within the first kilometer (think I went through in about 6.25) that it wasn't happening - I was more comfortable at 6.25/km pace and I'd be more likely to actually finish if I tried to keep to that pace. The beach section was a bit weird, didn't feel too bad underfoot actually and was an interesting change, even if my shoes now don't look quite as white as they used to! Used gels at 50 minutes and 1:40 (had intended for it to be at 5 and 10 miles, but ended up being more like 5 and 9.5) - I made the noob mistake of bringing a kind I hadn't used before (Powerbar Strawberry/Banana) but got away with it.

Felt like I slowed up a bit after about the 9km mark - maybe the heat and humidity were getting to me a little, but kept chugging along anyway and ended up picking off a lot of people in the second half of the race that had gone past me early on.
Ended up facing one of my biggest fears on the beach on the way back... JELLYFISH. EVERYWHERE. :eek: Didn't help too that there was a very heavy fog on the beach and it was very hard to see where the turn to get off the beach was - maybe another marshal there would have been a good idea? Passing the 16km marker meant I was into uncharted territory, my longest training run was 10 miles. Felt fine, if a little slow, up until about the 19-20km mark when the legs just started feeling really heavy. Didn't stop though, and finished in (by my watch) a time of 2:17:21, which is 10.29/mile or 6.31/km pace.

I'm really glad to have finished - slightly disappointed with the time because I honestly though I could have had a decent go at a 2:10, but I suppose that when my preparation isn't ideal then just finishing the race was good. I ran all the way, didn't stop to walk at all, unlike a lot of people who finished at similar times to me. It's also given me even more respect for the distance I'll face in October - I honestly didn't feel like I could go much further at all than the 13.1 by the time I finished today. Still got 4 months before I face twice that distance though!