20 miles - did I do it?

I finally left the house at about 12:30pm after having porridge with raisins for breakfast, a banana for a post-breakfast snack, and 250ml of energy drink while I was dithering about getting ready.

Jon took my 'before' photo (left) - I appreciate it's not a particularly good look, and I didn't realise how un-colour co-ordinated I was until I just looked at it - but hey, who cares?

I am wearing my new Macmillan running vest - getting it worn in before the marathon comes - my skins leggings (about which I have mixed feelings) and my lovely personalised Nike Free trainers.

I am also modelling our new paving round the back of our house in the photo - it was finished on Friday and we are very fond of it!

Anyway, on to the running. Today I decided to do 3 laps again - 1 x 8 miles, 2 x 6 miles to get my 20 miles in. I put 2 bottles of energy drink out by our front gate for me to pick up on my way round, and took one with me to start with.

I set off and felt tired pretty much from the start. I think the weights on Friday and cycling yesterday really made my legs weary, and I was probably going a bit quickly - just for a change. I was a bit worried though, some bits of that first lap were pretty tricky - the hilly bits really did for me, and I was breathing pretty hard, and by the time I got back to the house first time I had only done 13 km out of my planned 32km!

The next problem was that when I got to the house my drinks were gone!!! I couldn't believe it. When I finally realised that Jon hadn't moved them or anything - they were vanished - I dashed into the house, found my remaining sachet of energy drink and made up another 500ml bottle to take back out with me. I also left a bottle of plain water in the hall to pick up on my last lap.

That whole thing really threw me - where did the bottles go? I mean, did someone really steal them?

Worst thing was getting going again after my impromptu stop - but at least I had managed to pick up more drink - I think I really needed the extra energy to keep me going.

So. Back on the road, and my next lap of 10km. Nothing too remarkable - I was glad to get to the top of the hill and enjoyed the subsequent down hill, but by the time I was getting close to the house, I was thinking about packing it in. That would have given me 24km (~15miles), which wasn't bad.

Of course I didn't stop!!
Did you think I would have done?

I stopped briefly to pick up my water bottle, and carried on.

It was getting really hard by then - but I slowed down a bit, got my head down, and pushed on. I didn't have to go so far on that last lap - because I ended up only needing 8km by the time I got home the 2nd time. Bonus!

I took a bit of a shortcut to stop me having to walk so far home (I was planning on stopping as soon as I hit the 32km, wherever I was), but that meant running up a short steep hill - which nearly had me on my knees! My legs were REALLY tired by then, and I couldn't wait to get to my last 2km which I knew were going to be downhill!

Even then though, I wasn't quick even on that last downhill stretch, and when I hit 32km (which is actually 200m short of 20miles if we are being picky) I stopped!

I was done.

I walked the last kilometer home, limped into the shower, didn't take an 'after' photo (too tired), had home-made vegetable soup and a cup of tea for 'lunch', found the sofa and that was me.

I did it!!