Awesome running! Clacton to Walton and back.

I feel like I'm starting all my blogs recently with sorry for not writing recently.  The truth is I've had so many great runs recently that I want to write about all of them. S I will try to blog each day this week on my recollection of the runs so we can catch up :). It will probably end up being in reverse order until I can catch up with myself :)

Today, I did the longest run yet of my training programme, 17 miles.  One of the commando runners had arranged a seafront run long before today's weather had been forecast.  It was to be 14 miles, and I thought I'd easily be able to fit in an extra 3.  The temptation of a carvery lunch was quite a big pull, as well as it being a completely flat route, so a chance to get a long run on the absolute flat to emulate Manchester marathon somewhat.

A few of the boys had agreed to run 17 miles with me.  I was a bit apprehensive about this, as I wasn't sure I'd be able to keep up with their sort of pace, especially with a marathon paced session the day before and an almost vomit inducing run on Wednesday in my legs.  Ian who had kindly driven me to Clacton promised to stick with me if the other chaps went ahead.

We started off at the Toby carvery, a short way from Clacton pier and were happily out front as we would have to go a bit beyond Walton pier to make up the 17 miles.  The wind was behind us, and runningn with others it was tough to stay slow.  I had thought, given the build up of miles in my legs in the last couple of weeks, that 10 min miles was all I could hope for today, but we had a pretty strong tail wind behind us and the miles flew by rather quickly:

Mile 1 - 9:24

Mile 2 - 9:17

Mile 3 - 9:14

Mile 4 - 9:10

Mile 5 - 9:09

Around here I stopped to have a gel, and was a little concernd about the pace we had been doing, and whether I would be able to keep it up..  I wanted to pull it back a bit, and Ian stuck with me whilst Danny and Michael continued ahead.

The gel gave me a little bit of a boost, and I think the wind was starting to build up a bit.  I thought I was slowing down, but the splits say otherwise

Mile 6 - 9:09

Mile 7 - 8:57

Mile 8 - 9:02. This mile did include a toilet stop with a paused garmin, and a decision to go up to Walton on the naze tower, meaning total run distance would end up at almost 18 miles.... We should have thought this through, given the head wind.  We lost Michael as we took a slightly different route to the tower as he was ahead.  Danny had dropped back to join us.  By the time we got to the tower, Michael had already gone, but we paused as it gave Ian a chance to buy some water and a twix, and we took a piccie to prove we were there:

Now it was time to head back.  I felt as if the wind had seriously picked up, and Danny went steaming ahead (relative). I was definitely going too fast at this point, as I couldn't get much chat out.  Had to pull the buff up over my face to protect it from the wind.

Mile 9 - 10:16

Danny dashed into the diner at Walton pier and we followed him and the cyclist who had come to cycle the route were having a break.  They said Michael had been and gone, as had the runners who were doing the slightly shorter pier to pier run and back.  We could all tell we were rather apprehensive at the prospect of running another 7 miles in that wind.  Half way between just wanting to get on with it, and wanting to give up.

From here we had to run on the promenade, so there really wasn't anything between us and the sea wind.  It was strong, and there was even some tiny hail at one point that stung my face and eyes and I screamed a little....  Various gusts scared me into thinking I might get blown off into sea.  I really didn't enjoy this section, and my attempts at drafting Danny didn't work, as he kept running through puddles then avoiding them by jumping up onto steps,whereas I went around the puddles, so lost him ahead.  I tried to draft Ian a few times too, which was more effective, but sometimes ended in me running slap into his back with the wind break he provided! :-D

Mile 10 - 9:57

Mile 11 - 9:29

Mile 12 - 9:17

I pushed to pass 12 miles as it meant only 5 miles left, however, in this headwind, that still seemed a really long way.  I started to drop back a bit, and Danny dropped back to, saying that he was torn between wanting to ease off so he didn't blow up at 15 miles, and wanting to get it done.

Mile 13 - 10:01

Mile 14 - 10:03

Despite the cold, I really was starting to feel quite thirsty now and could do with a bit of fuel, so I stopped at 14 miles to drink the rest of my SiS electrolyte drinks and also mentally prepare for the final 3. We chatted about how this run would go down in folklore... How it was basically running in a tornado with a coyote following you. After a few hundred metres walk, wwe started running again, and one of the cyclists caught up to us to tell us the others were catching the train home instead of meeting us at the carvery.  It would have been even harder cycling in these conditions- would have been colder and thrown about more in the wind! But still amazing it had taken them 5 miles of our running to catch up to us.  At this point we all decided it was a Parkrun home, and that certainly made it easier,  we could see Michael ahead, and my end of race stalker instinct kicked in.

Mile 15 - 11:02 (including walking so once running clearly upped the pace

We caught Michael, and I felt like pushing it a bit more, and Danny ran with me.  I wanted to see if I could wind up to marathon pace in the last mile:

Mile 16 - 8:57

Mile 17 - 8:43 so not quite, but did you see the headwind?!?

It was great to have Danny running with me here.  He had got 19:30 in Parkrun yesterday and an incredibly strong runner, so it really helped me to push the last two.  I could start feeling my hamstrings tighten, and it was great to keep going on legs that feel like they are in the last stages of the marathon.

We waited at Clacton pier for Ian and ran the last part back to the carvery.  My legs had seized a bit from the final push, so I couldn't keep up for this part

0.63 mile, avg pace 9:20

Overall an awesomely exhilarating run with a rather simple route:

A total of 17.63 miles in 2:46:58 with an average pace of 9:29.

Thanks to Ian, Danny and Michael for keeping me company, and motivating group solidarity when it got hard :)