Year? New. Happy?

Distance: About 17.5 km

Time: About 2 hours, 11 minutes.

I concocted a hare-brained scheme to run to my mum’s place in Wanniassa this morning. Alas, the universe was conspiring against me.

The intention was to wake up at 6am and get on the road by 6:30. As we only went to bed last night at 1am, being that it was New Year’s Eve and all, and I can’t hear alarms going off with my earplugs in, and Simon slept through the alarm, it was 7am before I got myself out the door. Within half an hour, I realised that I was fighting a losing battle. The temperature was soaring. My legs felt like lead, and my knees weren’t all that happy after I rode my ridiculous little foldable bike home from work yesterday. I decided to be cautious, so I took a gel along to keep me fuelled, and some water, and I took short (and by short, I mean about the length of time you’d take to walk through a drink station in a race) walking breaks every five kilometres.

I wasn’t too sure on the route, but it turned out to be very straightforward and involved hardly any running in the on-road cycle lane. I made it through about twelve or thirteen kilometres before I started getting an odd pain in my back, so I took more frequent breaks. Every kilometre or so, I had to stop and walk for a bit. My pace slackened. I called mum to tell her I would probably be later than expected. Then, at 17 and a half kilometres, I threw in the towel. I managed to run all the way to Woden, but it was 30 degrees out there, and I didn’t really want to damage myself just to say I did it. Mum gave me a lift back to her place, and some breakfast.

Am I disappointed? Maybe, but I know 17k isn’t exactly a short distance. My last long run was on Monday, so I had less than a week to recover. I’ve never been good at running in the heat. I should have started out earlier. Blah, blah, etc.

Now my primary concern is the Marathon in April. I have maybe twelve usable training weeks. Even if I manage somehow to increase my distance by 2k a week, starting with 24k next week, I don’t think I’ll have time. Chances are, I’ll stuff up at least a couple more runs along the way as well. I’ve done some reading on Coolrunning, and it seems you don’t necessarily need to get to 42k in training, but I’m sure I’d feel better if I managed it. Oh well. I guess I’ll just have to see what happens.