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| Slow pacing is a challenge |
Day 181
Royal Parks Half
My second half marathon of the weekend. This one I thought would give me no trouble, since I was pacing a time 35 minutes slower than my PB. I could not have been more wrong. It was tiring and painful, and pretty stressful. I cycled there and back, about 16miles, which has no doubt contributed to the fatigue I feel now.
Keeping runners to a 2:20 pace necessitated running this, surely one of the most popular half marathons in the land at 10:30 minute miles, I calculated. A walk in the park. It's so hard though, playing the very devil with your head. An hour in, having chatted happily to people relying on me for a PB, I realised I had another 1 hour and 20 minutes on my feet, and my feet, one of them at least, were shrieking at me. I wondered at one point whether the middle toe pain, which came out of nowhere, would fell me. I checked my watch obsessively, but was jangled by my fellow 2:20 pace, who disappeared up ahead. Surely he was going too fast? Accelerating to keep up with him, I lost some of my faithful followers, including an asthmatic woman from Denmark, whom I didn't see again. That made me feel as bad as my foot. My pelvic floor was also playing up, so despite clenching, I was soggy. The finish was a welcome sight. Interestingly I was doing the same pace as my partner at the end, which was the pace, more or less, my Garmin kept me to most of the way round. In th event, I guess he could be said to have done a positive split - fast out, slower at end - and I did the oppostite.
One thing is for certain. I am resting now for a few days. The plantar fasciitis, and the pelvic floor, has to be addressed.
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