Happily Ever After
Life in The Rural Retreat with a beautiful wife, three cats, garden wildlife, a camera, a computer – and increasing amounts about running
Earlier posts can be found on Adventures of a Lone Bass Player, where this blog began life. Recent entries can be found here.
Holding Out For A Hero
by Russell Turner - 15:53 on 12 March 2018
Last week’s nine-mile run must have done me some good. Today’s was to be a mere 40 minutes, although increasingly heavy drizzle added some piquancy. I’m still managing to avoid rain.
Maybe the cold and damp led my subconscious to speed me up so the 40 minutes would be over quicker (my subconscious is obviously not very bright) because I set off, not deliberately, at a cracking pace of well under 10 minutes a mile. This couldn’t last, but my 40 minutes needed only an extra few seconds to cover four miles.
That’s the sort of pace in which Matchgirl completed her record-breaking Florence Marathon, so there’s no chance of me keeping it up to the end in London. My target (have I mentioned that I now have a target?) is to cover the 26.2 miles in under five hours. One minute under would be enough, so I could boast of finishing in four hours something. Time will tell.
When I made my ballot application, asked for an estimated finish time I wrote 6hrs 30mins (which may have been why I got my place; no-one believes the allocation is random). Whether I’ll start in the same pen as the 6+ hour runners remains to be seen – maybe we’ll be asked for another estimate based on training – but if I do it won’t be a bad thing: there’ll be less chance of my starting pace being over-enthusiastic.
Further marathon news came in an email from Animals Asia, one of my two chosen charities, asking for a photo of me in their running vest and a few well chosen words for Facebook to help boost fundraising. It seems that there are only two of us running for Animals Asia and the Moon Bears, so my decision about which vest to run in could well be made.
The alternative is to wear the Cats Protection vest and the Moon Bear ears which have been offered to me. We’ll see.
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