Another very good week

Milestones.
I "savaged" my V50 Half Marathon PB at Bedford, taking 5 and a half minutes off the time I ran in Nottingham in September. I was chuffed to bits with that! My objective was to run at 8:15 pace to 10 miles and then see how I felt, but poor pace judgement and a general lack of self restraint saw me clock around 15:30 for the first 2 miles! Thereafter I drifted into a pace slightly slower than 8 minute miling for around 4 miles as the course undulated pleasantly. From 6 to 9 the course is pretty much uphill all the way and I had found I was pretty strong here. The quite rigorous hill sessions I have been doing in Wendover Woods on fridays have obviously started to have some effect! At 10 miles I realised that a sub 1:45 was possible if I "raced" the last 5k or so. Thankfully this was mainly downhill and I began to pick out runners ahead of me and "reel them in" gradually. I stopped my watch at 1:44:28, the last runner I passed being a "Bearbrook Jogger", a runner from the local club in Aylesbury.
Bedford Harriers need praising for this race. A really good course mainly on country lanes and enthusiastic encouraging marshals absolutely everywhere; a warm sports hall to warm up and cool down in - what more can a runner ask for?
The week ahead promised to be the most active one of my renewed training so far and on wednesday I set out for my 17 mile long run from Waitrose car park in Berkhamsted. Having tested the formula 2 weeks previously, it was again a "double out & back" on the Grand Union Canal towpath, with a pitstop for more sports drink after 11 miles. Once again I completed the run at a faster pace than was wise, a little over 9 mniute mile pace, and it began to hurt a little after 15 miles. Thankfully the "running mix" on my mp3 player kept me distracted and at the end I realised the benefits of a start / finish in a supermarket car park as I re-fuelled!
I feel that this run put my marathon bid for February for the first time in a seriously positive perspective. I finished knowing I could run quite a bit further at this pace if rested, and after all I had run a "fast" half marathon less than 72 hours before!
Confident - yes. Over-confident...perhaps!
Finally on friday I ran my longest session of hills in the woods to date - probably about 10 miles. The dog kept going, so I had to as well! So that was 3 really beneficial landmark runs in 5 days. But how I had I managed to book into a 10k race just 2 days later? Masochism of the highest order...and more on this in the next post.