Well what a good day for running, dry bright and only a slight wind.  I set off for my 20 miler feeling really good.  The first part of the route was hilly up to about 5 miles, then it dropped down for  a while before starting to climb again up to about 13 miles then it was down hill all the way to the finish (apart from a couple of little hills along the way).

I used three of the Lucozade gels at 6.5 miles, 12.5 miles and 16.5 miles and I've been experimenting with drinks but seem to have settled on using a powder mix from Lucozade and mixing in some Red Bull for the boost.  I've been careful with the amount of Red Bull as it can get too fizzy and I think I'll defizz it before using it next time - now I just have to work out how to use this in the marathon.

I set out to do 8:30 pace (30 seconds a mile slower than my planned marathon pace) and kept the average there all run, I try to keep to an even effort so go slower on the up hills and quicker on the down hills as shows in my splits.

8:27, 8:22, 9:05, 8:40, 8:42, 7:48, 8:30, 8:06, 8:29, 8:31, 8:17, 8:24, 8:55, 8:58, 8:13, 8:18, 8:26, 8:21, 8:48, 8:18, 5:10.

So 20.56 miles in 2:54 averaging 8:30 a mile - so I'm well pleased and can now look forward to an easy week after a few hard ones. I'll drop down my runs and do a shorter run on Sunday.

Hope you've all had a good weekend I'll try to get round as many blogs as I can tonight see how you're doing.