Marathon Virgin by hashbridge

Been a very busy bee the last couple of weeks. My Masters thesis is due two weeks yesterday and am bricking it obviously. Have only had time to write, run and drink a bit more than I probably should.

But also happily have forced myself to get on the road since the last update, with four runs. Another just over 7 miler on the 26th - last Wednesday - which was pretty damn tough, though I think that had quite a lot to do with the shocking amount I had to drink over the weekend previous (a weekend which stretched over the Monday too...). In a way it was my best run for a while since I pushed through for the whole distance, despite really struggling at stages.

Spent the weekend at my girlfriend's, and went for another nice run with her around the O2 on Saturday, was about 4 and a half miles at a nice pace, didn't give me any problems at all. Then on Sunday took myself out for a quick run of about 4 miles on pretty much the same route.

And tonight, the piece de resistance. Was not feeling up for a run at all, but dragged my lazy backside out anyway with another mostly new route. Feeling pretty good after a couple of miles and lost track of where I was headed... and ended up running all the way up the hill to Crystal Palace parade (which, if you don't know where I live, and you don't, is steeply uphill the whole way for about a mile). Once I'd got up there, felt a bit shocked, but also quite elated, and pretty much sprinted my way back down the hill and along the rest of the route. Added another run round the college at the end since I had a bit left in the tank and when I got home and walkjogrunned it, found I'd done 8.8 miles in 1 hour 24 minutes, so 9 minute 30 per mile. Almost 2 miles further than my previous best, which I'd only made like a week ago, and also quicker than usual. Had no trouble from my various parts on the way round, but my calves are sore now and I imagine I'll be a little sore tomorrow.

Will go for another on Thursday, although I won't try for another recordbreaker just yet. Not too bad this running business.