The longest long run in a long year

How time flies. Without really meaning to do it today featured my longest run in an entire year - 15.4 miles to be precise, topped only by a 16 mile effort in January 2010. It's a bit embarrassing really as these extended aerobic efforts really are essential to building base fitness and we can probably all do with a bit more of this. Either way as predicted I did have a touch of the hangover this morning (I blame Liz and Johnny's hospitality for this) and so my run over to Jack Straw's Castle wasn't threatening any world records. Thankfully the ambient temperature was a few degrees warmer today and so my hands remained unfrozen.

Once again an elite group (of myself, Adam, Mike, Rob and Amanda) rose to the top - the crème de la crème obviously - and we set off down to the well-monied suburbs of St. Johns Wood and Belsize Park. This part of the world really is quite decent and, remarkably, almost all downhill! Sadly we didn't make it into Regents Park but on Hampstead Heath we stumbled across some excitement; the car park was full of eager-beavers being drilled by the British Military Fitness crew. This type of training has really taken off in London, especially in the summer, and I can sort-of see the attraction in paying to be shouted at by an ex-forces sergeant; in a way that's what we get from Ira, the founder of the running school!

 

On the return home I opted to create a nice figure-eight route by crossing back over the Heath (and the BMF group again) in order to take in Parliament Hill and the long drag up Fitzroy Park to Highgate. I find it such a pleasure to be heading home with 11 or 12 miles in the bag as you just know that every extra mile is of huge benefit; the whole idea of training your body to perform when fatigued. The odd thing is that I didn't feel tired at all and would have been quite happy to keep on going had I had some food or drink to hand; maybe all those years of training have turned me into an efficient fat-burner? Certainly a useful skill to have!

Distance: 15.4 miles

Time: 2h 09m 08s