On Sunday 26th March, John and I did the last and the longest of the Hemel Trilogy in 20 miles. We did the 12 miles at the end of January and 17 miles at the end of February. This 20 miler is giving us the confidence and preparation in the run up of the full marathon. Thanks again our club chair Alan Johnson who ran 3 miles from his home i
n King Langley to the start to send us off and ran 3 miles back home.
I felt a lot better and fitter than 3 weeks again than when I did the Regent’s Park 10K. I started in just under 10 minutes a mile pace for the first 3 miles on the towpath. Just before I turned up towards the Ashridge Forest direction after mile 3, it was exactly 30 minutes. During the one mile long uphill, I slowed down a bit and could only maintain 10 minutes 38 seconds a mile pace. From mile 5 to 7, it is mostly downhill so I picked up my pace a little bit but could not manage to make up the lost time during the uphill. From this point onward, I maintained 10 minutes 15 seconds a mile pace for quite a long time. There is a very nasty uphill before mile 12 and my pace dropped again to 10 minutes 20’ish seconds a mile. Thereafter even though on downhill, I still couldn’t make up the lost time. My GPS watch just didn’t budge to sub 10 minutes 20 seconds a mile pace no matter how hard I pushed. It just stayed 10 minutes 20 something seconds a mile pace. After mile 17 and after taking a couple of jelly babies, I knew the last 3 miles are all downhill and flat. I felt like I was pushing harder and harder but my watch still showed I was 10 minutes 22 seconds a mile pace. It just stayed like this until I finished. My time was 3:27’09” and my average pace is 10’22”. With this time and provided no disaster happens on the race day, I hope to be able to finish the full marathon in 4:45’. Just finished in 3:56’. He is not doing the full marathon but he said it is still a great workout.
I am also quite pleased to report that this time we even had some spectators to cheers us on. This Hemel event starts along the Grand Union Canal then up to the Ashridge Forest (National Trust) and some country lanes before heading back to the canal to the finish. The route is usually very quiet. The only other road users are the cyclists who are also doing some time trial events and dog walkers. After 13 miles, we went back to the same loop ie between mile 5’ish and 8’ish to do another 3 miles before hitting mile 16 to finish the last 4 miles. On the way to the “2nd loop”, we ran past a golf course and at that time some golfers were quite close to the pavement we were pounding on. They started waving at us and said: “Keep going runners!”. What a morale booster.
A big thank you again to the Gade Harriers Running Club for providing this opportunity for us to prepare for the full Marathon. Their effort has not gone unnoticed especially the lovely Marshalls standing in the cold winter morning watching us, directing us and more importantly keeping us save. Their words of encouragement have definitely lifted up my spirit! Also commendable is the Boxmoor Cricket Club to let us use the club house facilities for bag storage, shower and to enjoy the lovely post run refreshment. Here is the YouTube clip of the post run atmosphere outside the Boxmoor Club House:
[embedyt] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=djpb022qiLY[/embedyt]