After consuming more hot cross buns than are good for us this morning JP and I decided to go for a long run tonight. Now a long run for most people would suggest something over 25km. But for novices like us who are still conquering our regular extreme hill run of 4.5km we simply aimed for something slightly longer, but somewhat less than 25km. Of course, in my mind it was of similar epic proportions.
So we aimed for the video shop since we had to return a video. This is a good deal longer than our normal run and at 14mins into the run we turned off our normal route and headed uphill (again) for the the long distance.
Okay, let me qualify this. Our long run consisted of running in the vacinity of 6.2km. We are unsure about the exact length since JP didn't set his gps until somewhere between .3 and .5 kms into the run. But it did take 20 minutes longer AND we ran from 29mins until 49mins non-stop. Something of a record for us. Just goes to show how much extra effort those hills on our usual run take out of us.
One thing that was a real benefit was getting a good distance under us to practice mid-foot strikes. It's something that we can't normally do on the hills so to have some flatter terrain to work on form was really nice. Although the nasty tree root that jumped out and attacked me half way along wasn't so great. So on went the dreaded headlight after all.
So, marathon in my future? Maybe... I'll just conquer a 10km some day first.
22/4/11: heart rate = 162av, 189max, 50.06mins, 520kcal, 46.2km. Red face factor = 10.
(19/4/11: heart rate = 176av, 192max, 29.4mins, 336kcal, 4.5km. Red face factor = 9)
