On a wing and a prayer

We entered Glasgow Half Marathon waaay back in April or something, it wasn't too long after Inverness half where i'd ran 1.42 and i felt fairly confident of dipping under 1.40, i mean it was 5 months away, easy peasy right?

Wrong.

Thing is, I'd done little or no training for it. Now some may scoff at that suggestion. I run most days dont i? I recently ran the Devil, that's 42 miles. Surely a half is a "walk in the park"  " just wee dawdle" "phffff, easy" 

Just some of the comments i got when i said i was running it. And to some extent i believed it myself. But only to some extent. I knew from the previous weeks race in Melrose that it was going to be tough. OK, i run to and from work a lot. I'm averaging around 40miles a week at mo (44 last week, 46 week before to be precise) but, and it's a big but. I am not doing the distance.

Luckily i have the tools to analyse and boy does it analyse for you. I'm talking about www.Fetcheveryone.com.  After having a quick look today at how many long runs I'd done recently it took me months of scrolling back. Yes I've ran the Devil, WHW race, training runs across there etc etc. But my last long run on road was way back in April. APRIL! And although it was 7 hills of Edinburgh I'm counting it as there is fair bit of road running in middle of the hills. Other than that I'm looking back to March. Crazy. Every other run has been less than 6 miles, how on earth can i expect to run a fast half on the back of that?

Some people say that running in trails and hills means you'll get faster on road. Perhaps it does for some but for me i think it make me a bit lazy. In fact i know it does.

Look at this girl's training,she is an inspiration to me  , if there is anyone who can prove that specific training works it's her. She really does inspire me to get out there, if i can achieve a fraction of what she has I'll be a happy girl.

So yesterday i ran as hard as i felt i could and got round in 1.45.16   Not a bad time at all perhaps, but i should be doing better i reckon.  I'm carrying about 7lbs extra which i managed to put on after getting injured and still haven't managed to shift but that's just another excuse really. It's down to training and if i want to do any kind of decent Marathon this yr, which i do then i need to get off my lazy bum and get out and do the training for it.

Loch Ness has now been kicked into touch, i could get round and i could probably get sub 4 but i dont want to go to a Marathon, or any other race for that matter just to "get round" I want to give it my best shot. I've got my GFA for London next year but i know i can do better than that, so with a little bit (or perhaps a lot) of training and plenty kicking up bum from Ian I'm sure i can give my next race some justice.

Hmm look at that, a whole blog about running, and being serious.

I hope I've not made it sound like i hated it, because i didn't. It's actually my favourite Half Marathon, the organisation is top notch, the crowds are fab and the route although tough is great too. I love it. And we had a great day out, picking up Kate on way,meeting Debs soon as we arrived and bumping into many friends throughout the day.
 Just great. All finished off with drinks in wee brewery place up from Glasgow Green then back home for a takeaway before heading back out to trek  to top of Craiglockheart Hill to watch the fireworks. The festival really is truly over now.


Let Autumn commence. And the hard work begin.