GNR 2 - The Revenge! by pickassoreborn

I managed to get 15km under my belt for my long run! I visited my folks at home and decided to take my training gear with me to. I remember doing this last year although I did end up running on the beach, where the Hoylake Lifeboat Day was in progress. There had to be a bit of beach running there to avoid all the crowds, though here's the obligatory Nike Plus graphs -

It's a bit of a strange graph - again, start strong and then slowly dip. due to the fact it was hot and sunny (whooo.) - and you know how much I love the sun - I had some problems. On the 10th km, I also had a weird thing where I stopped for a breather and wipe my sweaty eyes. When I started to run again, my legs turned into jelly - it was a very strange thing because I seriously thought that I was in trouble. I ran through it and the last 5km were purely ran on determination. I had the same issue as the last run where I hadn't carbo-loaded so I had an empty stomach sloshing about with Lucozade Sport. Still, it seems I had a good time and a good pace. Plus compared with my best 15km run...

It's not that bad. I had a big push around the 12km mark which kind of evens out the two graphs. Now Saturday is the 1st September. The month when the Great North Run will take place - psychologically, this is a great kick in the arse as I sort out my justgiving site again, produce some artwork to promote it and also will pimp myself to the guys and girls at work and also on my myspace and facebook accounts.

I'll also be getting my number, tag and stuff from GNR although I think I'm still waiting for my iron-on transfer letters for my Macmillan t-shirt. I need those letters! Nothing motivates more than having many friendly strangers shout my name in encouragement. I may have to give them a friendly prod... I'll hunt around on the terrifyingly-designed new-look realbuzz.com for other people training next month too. I also need to see if Nike will be holding any training runs like they did last year, although I get the feeling I may have missed some.

Looks like tonight will be a 5km run after work - so an increase in pace and performance is on the cards. I'll be winding down the long runs too in preparation of the big day - 2km less to the ohnosunlucky sum of 13km. It worked last year so if it ain't broke...