My sister is also running the London Marathon in April. She initially signed up because we though I wouldn’t have the will power to do the training on my own! Well it turns out that I am a super motivated marathon trainee and I haven’t really needed any nagging to persuade me to get out of the house and go for a run. So now Meg is stuck training for a marathon that she never really wanted to do! But having said that, I think she is enjoying the challenge of getting fit and ready for the run as much as I am.
We have both signed up for the Tunbridge Wells Half Marathon on the 26th February. Meg wanted to run a half marathon beforehand so that she would know that she could go the distance… I agreed to take her on a run and use my GPS watch to measure out a 13-mile route.
So on Wednesday we set off on a half marathon. The route started in Kensington Gardens, down to the river, around the edge of Battersea Park, along the river to Big Ben and into the Royal Parks with a few squiggles in Hyde Park to make up the distance.
We started of at a nice steady pace which we kept up all the way to Big Ben. It was obviously very gentle for me, but in hind site it was probably about 0.5km/hr to fast for Meg as her pace started to drop dramatically as we entered the parks. The rest of the run was quite painful for her and I got a bit worried as she started to go pale… but she gave me a lesson in determination and kept going all the way to the end of our half marathon. By the end of it she looked like I knew I would after the Tunbridge Wells Half Marathon in 10 days time… I’m not looking forward to it!
Our time for our half marathon was about 2hrs 10mins. I think it was overall a good experience for my sister’s confidence but we are both petrified at the though of doing one of those over the hilly T. Wells terrain!
I was surprised to feel a slight ache in my calves when I woke up the next morning. I think Meg felt worse.
1 Response to “A Gentle Half Marathon”