The return to double-digit miles has gone far smoother than anticipated.  After an assessment of the miles I needed to cover before June I decided to slightly adjust my training.  Instead of simply running the miles I decided to do a run walk split.  This involves running for 25 minutes and walking for 5, I feared this might impact my average pace; surprisingly it didn’t.  It had the opposite effect it made me faster.

Running for smaller segments allowed me to increase my pace slightly and eek out the miles over 1-2 minute per mile faster, meaning the walking didn’t have such a detrimental impact on my pace.  My heart rate also stayed incredibly low throughout the entire run and muscle ache was kept to a minimum.  The new run walk training is definitely here to stay for the weekend runs.

I have also begun to experiment with nutrition, during the run I have started to use gels.  I had been determined to stick to easily obtainable foods, but the gels have snook in.  I will be mixing it up with normal food and gels but for now I am enjoying experimenting with the different flavours.