I realised it's about time I got some decent long runs in before the Alpine Loop the Lake on April 19th. I'm just aiming to finish, and I expect it to take around 3 hours, so I need long runs the next three weekends. I've been keeping up with plenty of 70-90 minute runs, including the odd backpack commute and plenty of offroad stuff (I think Phil and I have spent about 8-10 hours on the trails over the past three weeks or so, which isn't too bad), but it's actually been awhile since I ran long.
Today I ran up in the Western Hutt hills for what was going to be 2 hours. But because I did an out and back that was really an up and down it was only 1:52. I promise it FELT like 2 hours. If you trust my nike+ it was about 11 miles, but that's 5.73 on the way up and 5.29 on the way back, so I'm not sure how much I do trust it. If you trust mapmyrun it was at least 12.5 miles, which would mean I ran at around 8:50 pace. I don't believe that either. But either way it was good and fun and pretty hard, with around 1000 feet of ascent. That's not a huuge amount, but believe me there was a LOT, and it wasn't gentle. The views of the Hutt valley, the hills and the harbour were fantastic, even with the fog and I loved the feeling of being slightly in the wilderness as I left the suburbs. When Normandale Rd ended, I ran for a mile or so towards Old Coach Road in good old Belmont Regional park. Lovely :-)
Time to be a flexible warrior. Hope y'all had good weekends and workouts!
Update: Sad!
4 comments:
Oh, that sounds like a lovely run. The weather was soooo much better than I was expecting. It may have been a little damp, but it wasn't cold and there was very little wind.
Any run that includes an "up" gets a pass from me on whatever distance or time you'd like.
I used to rely on my Nike+ and loved the thing when I first started running (I had to quit... I had an addiction). And it even seemed to be spot on with mileage for the first couple months.
Then my perfect vision of the thing was ruined when I ran a 10-mile race with it. Let me just say that the iPod finished the race around 8 miles, and it was a real bummer to find out I had another two miles to run. It's still an incredible piece of technology.
Great run.
I've lost faith in mapmyrun and my Nike+ as well. Both seem to overestimate the distance. I'm going to re-calibrate the Nike+ and see how I go.
Good luck with the run. Are you still targeting the Rotorua Half Ironman in December???
Wow, I am impressed with your run. Not being a running person at all of course.
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