Hal Higdon Marathon Progress

Yesterday was a 9 mile (14km) run on the Hal Higdon Marathon Plan.

With recent experience I knew I had to do this in the morning because:

a. it would be cooler
b. if I didn’t do it in  the morning the day would get away from me and it just wouldn’t be done.

So, even though it was a Saturday and the “sleep in” was calling, I hit the road around 6:20am.

The aim was to run to a coffee shop in Mt Lawley, which is, coincidentally, around 9 miles from home (about 14kms). Then have a light breakfast with the FBH would would be coming by car, then head home. I could have done a 14km circuit and end up back at home but I wanted to run a different route.

The day was sunny although a little windy but it would keep the running temperature down.

I was trying to think how to play this mentally as 14km would be my longest run yet . With my recent experience in running slowly I wanted to be able to run the whole way. It is funny how the mind works though. I had run an 8km recently so I was thinking if I could beat that, it would then be okay for a short walk. Then  I thought “Well, just get to 8km and then run 1 more km and see how you feel.”

So that was the plan.

The only other “anomaly” was that the Nike+ was going to clock up the k’s quicker than the Garmin. So when I hit the 8km mark on the Nike+, I was at about 7km on the Garmin (yes, the difference is that much!) However, the voice from the Nike+ is reassuring that you are making progress and I like hearing that each time I hit a milestone, no matter how inaccurate it might be.

At around the 9km mark my headphones were slipping put every few meters so I stashed them for a bit and ran silently for what turned out to be about 4km. I stuck the headphones back in to hear the fateful words “400m to go”.

I was stoked. Even though the Garmin said I had run just over 12km (about 2 km to go), I had run the whole way and was feeling pretty good. I met a few runners coming the other way and we acknowledged each other and that gives you a bit of a fillip to keep going.

All I needed to do now was keep going to the Nike+ 16km mark and I’d be done. I was tired but as I got about half way down Central Avenue in Inglewood I had made it and I had run all the way.

I must have taken a longer route as I was still about 2km from the coffee shop and tossed up whether to keep going or just walk the rest of the way. I decided to walk it as I had completed the exercise and didn’t want to over do it.

But I was feeling pretty pleased with myself I must say.