Well self pittying my rather sore right quad while I should have been doing a London key session I thought I would take the chance to update this...With a week off work I thought I would take the chance to spend some time away on the coast running along the coastal path. Looking at a map and using the online distance calculator on the South West coastal path website I thought that Exmouth to Studland would be a good distance and reasonably easy to arrange. This led to the following days:
Day 1: Exmouth - Beer
Time: 3 hours 42 mins,Distance: 21.20 Miles (10'29 min/mile),
Ascent: 1081 m, 1 hour 43 mins
Day 2: Beer - West BayTime: 4 hours 1 mins,
Distance: 21.54 Miles (11'13 min/mile),
Ascent: 1250 m, 2 hours
Day 3: West Bay - WeymouthTime: 4 hours 2 mins,
Distance: 23.94 Miles (10'07 min/mile),
Ascent: 652 m, 1 hour 32 mins
Day 4: Weymouth - LulworthTime: 2 hours 2 mins,
Distance: 10.64 Miles (11'28 min/mile),
Ascent: 595 m, 1 hour 4 mins
Day 5: Lulworth - StudlandTime: 5 hours 3 mins,
Distance: 29.30 Miles (10'21 min/mile),
Ascent: 1570 m, 2 hours 19 mins
Total:Time: 18 hours 52 mins
Distance: 106.6 miles (Driving: Bristol to Birmingham 88 miles, Bristol to London 118 miles)
Ascent 5209 m (Sea level to the Matterhorn 4478 m, Sea level to Scafell Pike 978 m)
This being my first attempt at multiple days of big mileage I was glad to be able to take my time and run where I could run and walk where I could walk. Most enjoyable was taking running back to its most simplistic running from A to B while enjoying the journey along some dramatic coastline. With the biggest learning being fueling myself more during and after each run. Also getting started each day hoping my legs would start to feel better as I got started, inevitably this happened but was rather difficult sometimes. The most pleasing part of the whole trip was getting through the miles and finishing well with a sub 5 hour marathon over undulating terrain.
Prior to this I set a new 10 mile pb of 55 mins 15 secs on a hilly road course at Lychett 10 this was off the back of some solid training for London with 4 weeks of averaging 80 mile weeks. Originally I was unsure on targeting 2 hours 30 mins at the London Marathon in April but this has started to make it look possible with some solid training.
For now I am focusing on recovering from last weeks adventure and getting ready for a consistent 7 weeks training up in till London on 26th April. In the meantime I have Reading Half marathon which doubles up as British Half Marathon Championships where I am looking to target a top 3 U23. However to an extent this is very much out of my control so going to keep smiling, keep the routine, keep training and race sensibly.
