23km run

Today was my longest run ever!

I was scheduled to do a 2hr 30min run in the morning and a 30min run in the afternoon.  I woke up and it was pouring with rain - absolutely bucketing down.  I was so despondent, as I really needed to get this run done.  I wasn't keen to run in this sort of rain as I was guaranteed to get blisters and be out of action for too long.  So, I decided that I would swap the runs around and do my 30min run on the treadmill inside in the morning and hope that the rain would break enough for me to get out in the afternoon.

Thankfully, the rain did clear and Craig and I headed off in the afternoon in a nice easy pace towards Yeerongpilly train station and then back home again.  It is relatively flat, although there are some undulations around Kenmore. 

The pace was very slow and the temperature was muggy and rainy but not too unbearably hot.  We had to make a toilet stop for me a short way into the run which was annoying, we also stopped at the tennis centre to refill bottles and then we purchased some Gatorade and water at Indooroopilly 7-11, other than the toilet stop the other stops were pretty quick.

I felt pretty comfortable up until about the 17km mark where I started to feel stiff.  We stopped and stretched on the way back on the Indooroopilly bridge which definitely helped. 

I was very tired after the run and my legs were tight and sore, but I was very pleased that I was able to run that far!

What it has highlighted is I need to do more on my long runs.  So, I am contemplating a long run this weekend of 30km's at a very easy pace with a couple of stops for Gatorade, food, drink, etc, but try to keep it moving as much as possible.  It will probably take me many hours, but I think the conditioning on the legs will be very beneficial to me.