10 miles?

Sunday afternoon and I set out to run the furthest yet. I hoped for 10 miles, and rashly ptomised to push it up to 11 if anyone sponsored me today on http://www.justgiving.com/neilrichards1, which duly happened. In the end I hoped for three laps of my 3.5 mile route to get to 10.5 miles total.

I set off without my iPod which I seem to have lost, so was running late (trying to look for it) and not in the best of moods. The main problem of running without music is not just boredom but the fact that a stupid song will then otherwise fill your head the whole time. In my case it was a Dulux pait advert from the 1980s ("May the gloss in Ross be a good gloss" ... remember it?)

I felt so heavy legged during the first lap right from the start - it's just so difficult to get started. ("May the windowsills of Winchester shine"). I was feeling more comfortable as it wasn't as hot as Saturday, and the foot pain from earlier in the week was missing, but the run was a struggle from start to finish.

("May doors in Wales dry hard as nails") - the second lap then started, and though I couldn't really pick up any impetus, it wasn't necessarily any worse at this point, I was fine to carry on. ("May Derby's halls dry even"). Runners were thin on the ground but those that were out sped past in both directions.

But the third lap was really hard - running slowly past my house once again after seven miles when it would have been so easy to stop. ("Celings cover well in Motherwell"). I was willing myself on towards a second wind here, and managed to trudge a couple of miles in. The problem is that I started thinking where I could stop, how much it would all hurt when I got home, where I could turn round and run back home, and how much nicer it would feel to walk rather than run - it seemed I was running so slowly that I was generating far too much effort for little gain. ("And the skirting boards of Fife have a long life ...")

There had been times when I was thinking so negatively I actually thought I was walking, only to look down at my feet to realise I was still running (just!). But anyway the point came when I stopped, and walked. As I walked, I didn't feel out of breath, or overly exhausted and sweaty, just had run out of steam in my legs. Walking briskly was fine, but I just couldn't bring myself to run. I walked a while, ran a little, then walked the rest. I think I probably did run 9 miles, but was disappointed not to have raised the bar to ten or eleven. ("So brush in hand, decorate this land with the best paint").

As I write now on Sunday evening, I feel stiff, but not as stiff as the last time I ran nine miles. My worry is just that I might have hit my limit, or at least a barrier that is going to be hard to break down, with Silverstone just three weeks today!