Tuesday 6th December
The end is in sight. With 2 runs scheduled next week there’s a total of 5 half marathons and a full marathon to end the year. But that’s still 156 miles to go.
Tonight felt like a relaxed affair, not much pressure and a late start for an unorganised run around Bristol on a Thursday night. The PB attempts are actually easier to digest. It’s a bloody long way to run either way but at least if you’re attempting to go full throttle the struggle is understandable.After a few “no pressure” runs this year I’m acutely aware of how they manage to rear up and kick you in the face just when you’re thinking you’ll tak
e your foot off the pedal. I scoped this run out a few weeks back as one that could be really tricky on my own, a lull between organised runs. Thankfully, Laura Bridge came to my rescue. I coached Laura 5 or so years ago when she played hockey at Loughborough University. She joins the list of Loughborough graduates that have run with me this year to six. The start time got pushed back later and later as I crawled my way from Bath to our start destination in Clifton and it wasn’t until gone 7pm when we bounced out into the darkness. We circled the Downs and 5km in we plunged down to the Causeway joined by groups of runners enjoying the uninterrupted pathway for their high intensity interval runs. Our half marathon pace was sluggish in comparison! An elite hockey player and keen runner Laura was happily managing the pace so we upped it a few notches back towards town. The surge for me lasted the length of the harbourside and then I longed to reach 21km. My legs couldn’t convince my head to make them run any faster. From Temple Meads we beelined for Putdown and home.
Another tough one under the belt.
