Sunday 17 July 2011

Negrita and I just ran a half marathon in the rain

Negrita resting after running 21km (half marathon)

http://connect.garmin.com/activity/99819952

When I got up this morning, drew back the curtains, and saw what a miserable rainy day it was I didn't much feel like running.  Then as the day went on I decided that was a really lame excuse and what harm can a bit of water possibly do me I asked myself.  In fact for Negrita it is much better than running on a hot sunny day as she is not at risk of overheating.  Negrita doesn't really like the rain, but she isn't as bad as some dogs who won't even go outside when it is raining.  The neighbours dog for instance simply refuses to go out.

I wasn't sure how she would fare up for a half marathon, as although she has been running quite a few times with me in the last week we haven't been anywhere near that kind of distance.  She has done a couple of half marathons with me in the past though, so I decided to just start off and see how things progressed.

We ran along the lake towards Kussnacht and then turned round and retraced our steps.  As we came to the outskirts of Zurich Negrita even decided to start speeding up, so she can't have been that tired.  I have been reading various articles in the past few weeks that suggest on your long slow runs to try to speed up for a couple of kilometres at the end of the run.  The idea is to get your muscles used to having to generate force even when they are tired.  So for the last 2 kilometres I tried to focus on putting in a solid effort.  The fact that most of the final kilometre is uphill adds to that effort.

The total time taken was 1 hour 53 minutes and 40 seconds, and the pace felt rather comfortable.  I am happy with that considering I haven't run anywhere near that kind of distance in the last 2.5 months.  There is only way to go from here and that is up!

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