Sweet Home Alabama

Woke up at 530 this morning and had a look out window.  Car frosted over.......boy did it look cold!!!!!! What was I thinking.  I looked at two training plans and plan 1 was too advanced for me so I decided to go with plan 2.  So today was an easy long slow day of 10 miles.  The furthest Ive ever ran is 9.  Baptism of Fire I think.

I had some porridge and honey, filled my bum bag with 2 energy bars, yoghurt flavoured raisins.  Two bottles of blackcurrant juice mixed with dioralyte.  Dioralyte helps replenish nutrients that you lose through vomitting and the squirts. so I have always used dioralyte when exercising as it helps replenish salts lost through sweating.

My thermometer was reading -5 C. Oh shit so i jumped into Tescos and bought a hat scarf and gloves.What a peach of a morning.  I set off from milngavie train station at 730.  Started my running app on my phone.  That is some app and free by the way, Its called endomondo. 3 weeks ago I could hardly run four miles without being red in the face and panting.  I climbed my first hill, No sorry I ran my first hill and felt warm yes.  Fucked No!  On through the trail I went I kept telling myself its a nice slow day take your time I'm not racing anyone..........yet.  Before I know it ive done 3.5 miles in 45 mins.  So what I'm slow it was my long slow day anyways but I will get faster of that Im guaranteed.

On route to Carbeth I heard a voice from behind say "Hello" well I nearly shit myself.  It was a guy called richard who was doing the fling in 3 weeks.  We chatted for a mile and half then I was going to turn back.  But wait my endomondo trainer hadnt chimed in.  I was only at 4.18 miles.  Another .82 miles then I can turn back.  My running compadre was off in the distance and there was no chance i was catching this guy.  So onwards I went to my 5 mile point then turned back.  While running back I recognised these two guys from my hellish attempt at the kirkpatrick fell race who were coming twards and boy were they going some clip.  I entered the woods back in Mugdoch Park and still I could run. Mile 7 1:32:40.  Tortoise springs to mind.  The amount of walkers and dogs i met I must have said hello 50 times.

I arrived back in car park milngavie 10 miles in 2:08.26.  If I'm honest I would have liked to be faster and I have never ran 10 miles before so 2:08 im happy with, I think!!!!  Tomorrow I'm running for 1 hour and monday is my rest day.

My times and splits are

                          LAP            Split

Mile 1                12.27           12.27

mile 2                 14.05           26.32

mile3                  14.21           40.53

mile 4                 11.12           52.05

mile 5                 13.42           1.05:47

mile 6                 14.16           120.03

mile7                  12.37           132.40

mile8                  12.40           1.45

mile 9                 11.14           1.56.34

mile 10               11.52           2.08.26

Looking at my slow laps are the ones with hills so my average was 4.1 mls/hr to 5.4 mls/hr.  According to my app I burnt 1644 kcals.  My true average was 4.66 mls/hr and my average pace was 12.53 min/mile.  When I look at the stats and actually think of the terrain I am very happy.  If I did ten mile on  the road I hope it would be a lot shorter but they always say running off road is much more harder than running roads.

After my run I devoured scrambled eggs and salmon and black olives.  Amazing!