18 down, eight to go!

On Sunday Meg and I did an 18 mile run, which will probably be our second-longest training run before we taper down for the big one. We did a lovely route up General Wade's road into Daviot Woods, over to Nairnside and back to the Ness Islands.

I was feeling pretty good up to 13 miles or so, though my calves got a bit tight from there on. It would have been a struggle to do another eight miles after that but I guess we have another few weeks of training before we have to face that!

Inverness Half Marathon

Today we ran the Inverness half. Here's how we got on:

John - 1.39.45
Meg - 1.55
Dad - 2.07
Maddie - 2.30

See full results here

The weather was pretty horrendous, with snow and blustery wind before the start and during the race. This was Maddie's first ever half marathon, while dad is a bit of a veteran! Meg and I are obviously in training for the Lochaber Marathon but we took different approaches to today's 13.1 miler.

Meg decided to take it easy and run as though she was only half way, while I decided to try to pace myself mile by mile and see how I got on. My mile times were pretty consistent, between 7.16 and 7.52.

Half way there

Ridiculously long runs and no time for anything else other than eating and
sleeping are not always the most difficult part of marathon training. For
the last couple of weeks we have been struggling with not being able to run
because of nasty colds and general tiredness. We missed our 18 miler on
Sunday, feeling too worn out by a track session on Friday. We decided it
better to rest up this week by doing only a few wee runs and be fit for the
Inverness half-marathon on Sunday.

The half marks the mid point in our training schedule and also hopefully a
return to form so we can get the training right back on track for the
remaining 6 weeks.