Another half-marathon

...in which things are a bit different to last time.

On Friday night I went out to run a half marathon with Amy, who recently ran 53 marathons in 53 days; there were about 30 of us running to start with, and we ran 2 loops around the town. A lot of people stopped after the first loop (I think largely because it was Friday night and halloween), but 8 of us finished the whole thing - there's a picture of us all at the start on the 53.53 Marathons facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/pages/5353-Marathons/188981147892380.

(For some reason I keep typing "marathong" instead of marathon, which sounds like a piece of underwear that it'd be really uncomfortable to run in)!

I have in fact run a half marathon before, but I was 3 or 4 stone heavier and could not train for it; since I'm now running 25 - 30 miles a week (usually 2 "short" (5 - 10 miles) and one longer run (12 miles or more)) the half marathon wasn't really a big issue this time. (I can't believe I just typed that).

The loops were only actually 5.9 miles (someone had one of those posh watches that measures such things) so I ran home to make up the distance; by the time I'd finished I'd run 13.5 miles.

Last time I ran near that distance I was in considerable pain for several days afterwards; I had to walk up the stairs by holding on to the banister rail and pulling myself up one step at a time for 2 - 3 days. This time after running nearly 12 miles I still felt able to run home afterwards, and I still managed to go to the gym on Saturday (although I did take it fairly easy on the lower body stuff).

I'm quite proud of that; I only started training in earnest about 6 - 7 weeks ago and I'm already at a point where I can run a half-marathon in just over 2 hours without struggling.

I'm still at my Slimming World target, although I was very close to the top of my allowed range last Monday, so we've been a bit more sensible this week; we haven't had any alcohol for a couple of weeks now and we've been sticking to the SW plan more closely this week so hopefully I'll be back at target or below today.

I'll be aiming to get back down to the very bottom of the range for Christmas so I can treat myself a bit over the holiday - I may start adding food diaries again. And now I'm off for a little run :).