lovely long run

what a fabulous morning. 8am rendezvous at the lulu household saw lulu, mr lulu, the owl and caro meeting for a convoy drive down to brighton for an abridged version of the striders airport STaR.

I had never met caro other than a quick hello on the way up heartbreak hill in the City to Surf when Lorna had said - there is Caro - go catch her! So it was great to have a proper chat. We all took off together with Mr Lulu racing off and periodically coming back to check that we were all still going the right way. Lulu and Caro left the Owl and I at around the 45 minute mark as they had closer to an hour on their program. We didn't argue with them as they were heading home to prepare the brunch for later!

In the end we did 18.5km in about 2 hours and 7 mins. i had 2 hours for 16km on my program so it was roughly right. Average pace was 6.55 - after Caro and Lulu left we really slowed (consciously!) because we had been at 6.30ish pace which was fine but would have made us a bit sore and sorry afterwards. a real highlight (other than the DELICIOUS breakfast) was the bit where we suddenly running on the archery field - only the warning signs weren't on our side of the park - i think that we sped up a bit then...).

lorna did a very good job of giving me reality checks every time i started talking about how i was worried about the 1/2 marathon or was talking about how fast (slow) i thought i would go - thanks owly :)

beautiful day, perfect weather, fabulous company, exceptional food and a sense of achievement (30km in one weekend!!! holy bejeezus) - what a top feeling.

(just for my own benefit later the splits were 6.38, 6.38, 6.29, 6.32, 6.35, 6.44, 6.45, 6.54, 7.03, 7.03, 7.01, 7.20, 7.08, 7.02, 6.59, 7.03, 7.01, 7.10)