Ramping Up.

As the title suggests, it had to happen at some stage, and to be fair, it should have happened a few weeks ago.

This week was 50 miles, which was at least a ten mile increase on recent weeks. There was also a 5k race in there, which I was pleased with at18:39. It was a very hilly course, and a flattish one would have seen me much closer to 18.
Today's long run was slightly longer than planned, I kind of fell asleep for two miles. I went out for 16 miles at planned 7:25 pace, 30 ish seconds of target marathon pace. I brought one bottle of water with some cordial, and placed it at 4 miles out. I had planned to do some loops of a country road course. Once I was out, I changed the route a bit. I lost count of the mile beeps on the watch for a while, and when I was expecting the 9 mile beep, it turned out to be 11, which was a bit of a relief, because I was definitely feeling a bit of effort if it was actually 9 miles. This meant I was going to be out for almost 18 miles.
Mile 15 was actually a 7:15, but I struggled on mile 16. I stopped the watch at that point, to accurately judge the planned run, which showed a 7:20 pace. I was happy enough with that, although obviously the distance needs to increase substantially with a corresponding increase in weekly mileage. I jogged a slower almost 8 minute miles home for the last two.
My legs felt the effort of the run over the next few hours, it's a tired kind of stiff painful feeling that sees you walking like an old man for the rest of the day. Strangely, it's a feeling I have grown to like and dislike, although subconsciously I must like it more to keep subjecting myself to it.

I'm not too sure why that is.