I completed my last long run yesterday so I am starting to ease back on my training.  Its 4 weeks until London, some sensible advice on this subject can be found here.

Yesterday I did my last long run, I have done 6 long runs of around 20 miles, I will only occasionally do a long run at around my target marathon pace, I will save that for the big day:

To get a gauge of my fitness going in to this block of training I ran 17.25 miles on 21 January and it felt easy running 6:52 pace with Chris Ward.  Another useful fitness test was the Brass Monkey Half Marathon on 14 January where I averaged 5:55 pace.

Grim up North Canal Canter 20 mile race

I would have done East Hull 20 but its original date clashed with Grindleford, so I entered Its Grim up North Canal Canter 20 mile race.  Having run 22 miles on Thursday, a rest day on Friday, I was on tired legs for the race on Saturday.  Four Doncaster AC runners took part, Janet Hampson, Luke Osbon, Mark Webster and myself.  Its a low key event with 6 races going off at the same time (all with different colour numbers), I had no idea who I would be running against.  I also had no idea of the course.

Team #DAC love these people

The race started late and I started on the front of the runners, I was in second place from the start, but the chap who was in front of me was doing the marathon (and he would go on to finish in around 2:37:00), after about 3 miles I was passed by another marathon runner who went on to finish in about 2:41:00.  So I was leading the 20 mile race.

The race was out and back and never left the canal paths.  The paths were good but around 4 miles were quite muddy.  The route was fairly flat but a few short sharp hills existed at lock gates.  The canal path is very well used by walkers, runners, cyclists and god walkers so it was a bit busy at times.  Drinks stations around every 3 miles and I stopped at about 5 of them to have a quick drink.  At the turn around point I stopped for a minute and had 3 drinks.

The finish

On the return part of the race I looked for 2nd place in the 20 mile race, I probably had about 1 mile lead.  It was great to run past all the runners doing the 20 mile, marathon, ultra.  I used 4 SIS gels (free from SIS) and used the race to test my kit for London, my Zipvit gel belt (£10), trainers (Mizuno Wave Rider £75) and I ran in my 1000 mile compression socks (£12).  DAC vest which has lasted 100’s of races and Karrimor shorts.

My post run analysis shows I ran in Zone 4, Lactate Sub Threshold (right at the bottom of this).  My Garmin VO2 max continues to improve and I feel very strong at the moment, I almost wish VLM was this week, I am very hopeful for a PB at London.  Its just about being able to endure the pain for as long as possible, and that is mainly a mental thing.

I went through 10k in under 38 minutes, 10 miles in 61 minutes, half marathon in 81 minutes and 20 miles in 2:06.  I know I was slowing but if I had gone on for the marathon distance I think I would have got around 2:50:00.  Which is great on tired legs.

Today I did a gentle recovery run, 4 miles at 7:16 pace.  Felt so easy, a bit quick really.

Tune from 1994 played at Diztruxshon, Uprising and BYO.  If I raced to music this would be it.