London Marathon Day Run, Achieved 7.1km in 40 minutes (Pace 9 minutes 04 seconds)

Sorry if the title of this blog post is confusing, I just want to state that I did not run in the London marathon, I just ran on the same morning as the marathon.

I woke up on the morning of the London Marathon and decided that if I was to sit and watch the starting of the marathon at 10am I should run myself so I don’t feel as guilty. 7.30 AM, the alarm on my phone starts ringing, I get up and get dressed in my running gear. My running gear consists of a pair of running shorts a running top and some running shoes (A mixture of Brooks & Asics brands).

About 300 yards from my house is a canal where I do most of my running, it’s great because the canal path was paved about 3 years ago. Also the path I run along is exactly 2km distance, so I know if I run the whole path I cover 2km.

I always walk from my house to the canal to warm my legs up before a run, this is good for me as I don’t believe in stretching before a run (well maybe if I were to run a marathon). I had my heart rate monitor with me (not to check my heart rate but to time the run) I started the heart rate monitor and away I went. I started slow for the first couple of hundred metres to make sure my legs warm up, after this I go to my full running pace (currently between 10km – 10.5km speed).

I had my iPOD blaring up at full volume; I listen to rock and roll music such as “Huey Lewis – The Power of love” and “Blink 182 – All the small things”. Before I knew it I had reached the end of the canal (2km) so turned around and decided to run back to the start position. 3 songs later I reached the start position and had completed 4km. I was starting to run out of energy but decided I had enough to run back to the end of the canal, as I neared the end of the canal path I felt my pace slow down a little, but was really determined to get to the end (i.e. 6km).

Another three or so songs later I reached the end of the canal path (6km). At this point I was very tired but I was about 1km away from the road that leads back to my house, so I decided to run back to this point, I knew when I got to that point I could walk the 300 yards home, so I kept my head down and ran the last 1 km to the road, making sure I really listen to my music, thankfully the song that came on my iPOD was “Eric Prydz – Pjano”. Amazingly the song finished just as I reached the road, I was so pleased with myself that I managed to run a good distance (7.1 km in 40 minutes). Now I could go back home, get a shower, eat some breakfast and watch the London Marathon without feeling so guilty :-)