Daylight running

Today's mission was to run 45 minutes at marathon pace. In my case that's about 4 miles, or to be more scientifically accurate, 4 and a bit. And after rushing back from work, I had the opportunity to run at just after 6pm in the spring evening daylight, so much nicer than the cold winter evenings or the treadmill in the conservatory.

I'm still feeling a bit heavy-legged from Sunday, so set off struggling a little bit. But to me honest that probably kept my pace honest - usually I run about 10 minute miles over smallish distances but I need to admit that I am closer to 11 or 11.5 minute miles over the course of a long run. And after a mile or so I felt no worse, and it's actually nice at this stage of training to know that a run in excess of four miles on the streets holds no fears. Sure enough I completed my route without incident.

Of course there was the usual problem of an irritating song in my head - as I set off determined to banish Shania Twain, I chuckled to myself how an old Dulux advert from the eighties got stuck in my head all the way round on a previous run. 1.84 seconds later, the same Dulux advert from the eighties got stuck in my head. All the way round. But enough about that.

The run was a success - about 4.15 miles in 46 minutes, which should be good pace over 26 miles. Sounds easy when you put it like that ...