3 laps to heaven!

Didn't get out for my run until nearly 3pm as I was waiting for Tom (who is also doing the marathon) to arrive and join the fun.

Also, Jon had been persuaded to come out for the first, 8 mile lap, in a last minute, panic attempt at 'training' for next weekends Reading Half Marathon (picture is him finishing at Reading a couple of years ago)- so I had plenty of company!

It's hard going out so late - there is a lot of hanging around before hand, and you really have to think about eating (what and when) and it's usually nice to get the run over and done with so you can stop worring about it! Still, company was a good thing, so I really shouldn't complain.

Anyway - we went out and did the first 8 miles, and it went pretty well. We got rained on in the last couple of miles, and the temperature dropped about 4 degrees to 6 deg C - so it wasn't too pleasant at that point. Still, it was really nice to have company - although sickeningly Jon (who hasn't run for months) was going really well, and managed the 8 without too much trouble. How can that be?

We left Jon at home after that first lap - I got a bottle of water to help my energy gels down - and me & Tom carried on for our next lap - ~6 miles. Tom started struggling a bit quite soon after that - having trouble with his legs - he managed to make it round that 2nd lap, but decided to call it a day when we got back to the house - leaving just me!

So I had one more lap to go - just over 6 miles, and I was feeling pretty good.

My last lap was really pretty fine - I sped up a bit, and 'burned' round to get home in 3 hours over all. Turned out I had run 34.3km (21.3miles) - so my furthest ever - and, as a double bonus, if I had needed to run another 5 miles - I reckon I could!! How brilliant is that?

I am very pleased :)