9.4 miles hard

The club training session was supposed to be a choice between 6 and 10 miles. After having taken Wednesday off I felt able to try the longer route, which took us up Maryhill Road and Milngavie Road, then around the course of the Hogmanay Handicap, and back down to Garscube Estate. The fast pack was larger than usual to begin but not everybody was running the 10 miles, and by the time we reached the rugby club there were four of us leading the way. I was feeling some hamstring tightness, mostly on the left side, but nothing too serious, and my main handicap was lack of fitness. After about 5 miles, on the climb up to the mill, I was finally dropped, although I did drag myself back into third with a couple of miles to go, finishing a minute or two off the pace. It came out at 9.42 miles, timed at 1:00:37 for a 6:26/mile average, which I would normally have described as a moderate pace but for the distance and difficulty of the route.