Only 6.2 miles to go

7am is a nasty time to get up on a Sunday but it was all important for preparing my breakfast and giving myself enough time to eat it before heading out on a 2h55m run. The Bircher Muesli preparation takes a good 20 minutes but it's all worth it. Plenty of oats, bran and fruit to keep you going for the morning.

The run felt good until I was about 22km in, at which point my legs were starting to feel heavy and tired. I took on board the second sports gel of the run and 5 minutes later, whether coincidence or not, I broke through a barrier and picked up the pace to take me through the last 5 miles.

I completed roughly 32km (20 miles) in total, leaving a mere 10km to finish off the marathon distance. I'm walking around without much trouble now and feel pretty confident that I could have jogged a final 10km, especially with the support of a crowd and a pack of other runners around me.

It's an amazing feeling to have built up from running zero miles per week, aside from the odd occasion, to completing the best part of 40 miles in a single week. Today's run is the longest I'll do before heading out to New York and the last time I'll have the support unit in tow. I'm not sure I could have done it without my wife's (aka support unit) support on these long runs, both for encouragement, company and as an en route technical energy refuel and rehydration facility.

I've still 4 weeks of hard training to go and my next long run will be when I take part in the 16 mile Kingston race in two weeks' time.