Longrun Lessons Learned ...

My long run today was rather more tiring than I expected it to be, and a bit of a struggle to finish - not because I had any particular pain but because I could barely bear to pic my feet up by the end.  It wasn't as tough a run as the last long one - but can't say it was one of my favourite long runs ever!

Stats from GRG (as missed a bit of actual run distance off the Garmin version), although I think the last two miles went a bit weird - probably do an average over the last two rather than take the numbers too seriously!

Having thought about it I think there were probably two main reasons for this:

Pace

I think my biggest mistake lay in my pace: the RW plan I'm following suggested I should be aiming at 1:45 which equates to 10.30 min/mile pace. Now if I'd stuck at that I might have been fine.  However, instead I bombed off a wee touch faster, and had a sub-10 mile in there too. I know I'm gradually getting faster, but that's still 5k pace (or possibly 10k) ... not 10 miler.  It was only when I started getting to the 5th or 6th mile and my legs were distinctly tired that I realised I had probably pushed myself too hard!

No	miles	Time	Pace	AHR
1	0.999	10:13	10:14	153
2	1.034	10:12	9:52	176
3	1.009	10:00	9:55	177
4	0.989	09:53	10:00	180
5	1.006	09:38	9:35	181
6	1.015	10:59	10:49	181

Pace for the first 6 miles ... I should note that mile three was slightly cheaty in two ways: 1) I had to cross a busy road junction and had to keep stopping, and 2) I had a sneaky water break (which mean pausing to retrieve said water from my backpack and taking the opportunity to dry my glasses off while I was at it).

After mile 6, I took shelter in a bus stop to take my gel thing and a bit more water, but it was a bit of a struggle to get going again after and although my actual running pace looks fine from the stats, after the 7.5 mile mark I was taking far too many breaks.  I did get to 10 miles in the allotted time but this was set for people aiming for sub-4.30 and so I should have perhaps given myself a bit more lee-way, or tried to stick to the 10.30 pace that would have given me even splits.

Fuelling

Although I'm trying to be careful to make up for long runs with calories, I tend to do it on the day rather than fuelling up the night before.  This might be ok if I did my long runs in the evenings, but this morning I had a lovely but not hugely calorific breakfast of an egg on toast - which of course I ran off before I was even a quarter of the way in, and even taking on fuel didn't seem to help that much (although I might well have given up without it).

I thought back to my Cumbrae run, which although very painful I didn't have the same issues (and in fact wasn't particularly famished after either, which is unusual). But of course the night before, I'd been cooked a lovely three course meal  - of which I had small portions - but it was good food and not trash.  I guess I need to do some proper carb loading the night before now my runs are getting longer and longer and not leave everything to the day.  It's not like I don't have a good idea of how much I'll burn off per mile!

Hopefully lessons learned for next week!

Stopped off at the cafe in Cramond for Cullen Skink served with a wholemeal savoury scone (which was a nice idea, but they need some practise at making scones!), and a slice of Ecclefechan tart for pudding. I have to admit that once I'd cracked into the soup - which was rather potato and leek heavy and relatively low on the fish - I could have easily done without the pudding (or gone for something like a biscuit instead) but as I'd ordered it I thought I might as well crack on!

Did a bit of a long walk back to the further bus stop - not intentionally to burn more calories or as an additional cool down - but more because the nearer one had a 20 min wait and at least I kept a bit warmer by walking! Bus driver was very chatty (it's the end of the line so they hang around for 10-15 mins sometimes until they move off again), but it was nice to be in the warm and not having to run back!