Isn't Sunday supposed to be a day of rest?

I wasn't sure what I was doing today - 18 or 20 miles was my rough plan - but I wasn't definate when I set off.

It was one of those days when I just didn't feel good from the start: Some days you feel like you are flying along and it is so easy, other days (like today) it feels like a slog.

Made harder by not having my gadget so I didn't know how fast I was going (sometimes it helps because it shows you that the reason it is feeling so tough is because you are going too fast!), I just didn't get into the groove at all.

I did one lap of 10km and stopped at the house to get a drink (hidden round the back to stop the squirrels), I then persuaded myself around the longer 13km circuit, but when I got back to the house I felt like sitting down and giving up.

I'm sure a lot of it is about mental attitude, and today mine was very bad - "how can I possibly run 26 miles", " I can't do this", "my legs hurt", "I could just stop now", etc.

Anyway, I stopped at the house and had a drink, a bit of a stretch, a short catch up with Jon and then........... I went on my way. I was so tempted to stop - it would have been 15 miles after all - but then, I knew I would be disappointed, so I thought I would just run to the end of Frimley road (another mile) and then I could always run back.

When I got there I managed to talk myself round to the next turning point, and then I thought if I could run until I had been going 2hrs 30 minutes then it would be OK, and then to the bottom of the hill, and then to the top of the hill, and then............ well, I managed to keep it going until I had been going 2 hrs 50 minutes - which turned out to be 31.6km (19.5miles) - which on the one hand I was very pleased with, and on the other - slightly disappointed because if I had just managed to carry on for another 5 minutes I would have broken the 20 mile mark!

Stupid but true.

Also, I was quite a bit slower this week than last - no real explanation for it, just feeling more knackered on the way round.

Will it ever feel easy?

That's the bad thing (mentally) - you think that if you can run 20 miles, surely running 13 miles will be easy - so how come I was still so tired all the way through my run?? Doesn't seem fair somehow.

Still, on the upside - I did do my 20 miles, which means that I can enjoy next week's 'step-back' of only 13 miles (how nice will that be?) before my next 20 miler which will actually be a race at Bramley the weekend of 25th Feb. That will hopefully be better (surely it has to be more interesting?) than running laps!