Bottom Half

Saturday, 4 miles in 38 minutes, OK time, but the important thing was that I did the planned mileage every day. In fact, with the extra session on Wednesday, I was 3 miles over the weekly target!
Sunday is Long Run Day, this week upping the mileage again to 10. I've got a map of the actual course of the Ironbridge half, and it passes not too far away, so by cutting off the first and last couple of miles, I've got a decent ten-miler. As with the actual race, the first half of it is not too difficult, a few upgrades but nothing too serious, generally downhill as you descend into Ironbridge itself. Running alongside the river weaving around the tourists (in January?!), the river itself doing an impersonation of Mike Tyson - big and brown, powerful and dangerous, then up and over the bridge and picking up the footpath along beside the river. Shortly after crossing the bridge, I catch up and overtake a trio of horsewomen! By the time I recross the river at Coalport Bridge, the legs are starting to complain a bit, and then there's the climb up into Madeley. Most of it is done along the Great Hay Inclined Plane, I think part of the railway track for the old Coalport line. Certainly it is a very steady climb - all two miles of it! By the time I'd reached the top, at Madeley, my muscles were so set in "steady-climbing mode" that I couldn't stretch out and take advantage of the slight down slope after a bridge. Eventually, I'm back home in 1 hour 47, slightly longer than planned for the whole 13 miles. Good job that I've still got 8 weeks to up the mileage and the speed.
The course itself is quite a pleasant run, mostly through mature woodlands, and generally fairly level - a legacy of the old railway lines that form most of the course, with reminders in the archaelogy along the way, with, inter alia, roadbridges, Madeley station, now converted into something else, and the remains (an overgrown brick-built platform) of a station at Stirchley. On the way I met several runners coming towards me, all seeming to be going faster than me. The only comfort that I could take was that none of them had a water bottle, suggesting that their run wasn't going to be anywhere near the hour mark, let alone nearly 2.
I also stumbled across a blog from a woman who was doing ANOTHER half-marathon. Depressing was that the training that she was putting in was all faster than mine, and yet she still (after at least three attempts) had failed to beat the 2 hour mark. The big difference seemed to be that she would do a few weeks with almost religious adherence to a regular training regime, and then she would bunk off days at a time. Now, with 8 weeks to go, seems to be the time when her enthusiasm waned, and her tale is a cautionary one for me!