Planned run 2 hours 30 minutes

Date: 2 May 2010
Time: 2:30:55 min
Distance: 29.04 km

http://connect.garmin.com/activity/31894965


Another milestone run, and a greatest distance ever. 29.04km in 2:30:55. Average pace 5:12min/km. That is after tanking terribly at 25km's and slowing to almost a shuffle. The last 3 km's were all slower than 6min, the last one 6:40min/km!! If this were a full Marathon I would have had over 13km left to run. It would have been abject misery!!

So I have a clear picture of what going too fast for my capability will do to my run. I reckon if I paced sensibly at the beginning, 5:10min/km, I would be able to hold that pace the whole way, and not feel so wasted at the end.

One thing to note here is that I have worn my water belt for the last two long runs. And those runs have been very difficult in the last 6-8 kms. The one great long run I have done is the first 2hr20, where I did 28km's. I felt really good in that one, and I did NOT wear the water belt. However I also had to stop at 13km mark in that run to get water and toilet, so I had a break to freshen up. Today I wore the belt and my mobile, and that is close to an extra 1kg weight. And I ran completely non-stop.

So it seems clear that the extra weight does make a difference, as does a break at 13km!!.

I have a good idea were I am at right now. I am not in a condition to run 5min/km for the full Marathon distance. I have 9 weeks to go to build that endurance up. I wont be using the water belt, and I will have tapered so I will definitely be in it with a good chance to make it to 5min/km and around 3hr 30min goal finish time.