A Hard Half but Great Rewards

Due to work pressures I was unable to run at all over the weekend so I decided to go for a long run today (Monday) to get my marathon training back on schedule. I ran around 12 miles over a very hilly course and it was pretty hard going, I can tell you. It rained from start to finish which always messes with my mind a bit. I covered it in 1 hr 47 min which is okay given the course and the conditions but I want to get down to 1 hr 30 min before the actual marathon in June and during the actual marathon I hope to cover the half in 100 minutes. I let my marathon nutrition slip a bit over the weekend due to not getting time to sit and eat properly so I ate quite a lot of biscuits and crisps and I felt like I was paying for it this morning as I ran. I didn't feel very energised and I do think it was partly to do with feeding myself quite a lot of junk for two days.

However, I did get to see a few things this morning that your average non-runner doesn't see very often. The first was a fox that popped out of the hedgerow in front of me and trotted along for a hundred yards or so unaware that I was catching it up. When it finally noticed me it leapt straight throught the hedge and took off. The next thing I saw was a beautiful big stag lying down in the trees, sheltering from the rain. It had a magnificent set of antlers and was almost invisible in the darkness of the forest with its antlers making it look much like a fallen tree with its branches and twigs sticking out. As I looked a bit more carefully I could see that there was about 5 of these stags all lying down and all practically invisible. Nature has a wonderful way of protecting its own. The last thing that I saw that made me gasp at its beauty was a lovely black Porche Carrera! If he had offered me a lift I'd have definately packed in my run... aahh well.