Taking the weight off- Ultra Training Weekend: 2

This was our second weekend of ultra training. Our programme involves us doing two longer runs at the weekend. As we'd had christmas shopping planned for Saturday we'd swapped Saturday's shorter run to Friday. We nipped out for a good paced 10k and I managed to do a few really fast bursts between lamposts.  All good.

Christmas shopping passed without mishap..the came Sunday's training run.

I packed my 2 litre Camelbak and filled it to the max, taking along a packet of haribo, jelly beans, muddle puzzles, a granola bar and a half empty packet of energy tablets, inhaler, lightweight jacket, mobile phone, keys and a gel... there I was ready.

We started with a loop round our local area, muddy but flat. We had a brief chat with a horse rider she obviously thought we looked like long distance runners as she asked us if we were marathon training! She'd run two marathons and was interested in our training (horse riders round here are notoriously scowly and grumpy!)

My running was pretty slow, I just couldn't get a good pace and felt really tired. 8 miles in my heroic running partner offered to carry my Camelbak for a bit. Amusingly he nearly fell over with the weight of it! Apparently it was a bit heavy*. It seems my natural tendency to over cater, overpack and overestimate has spilled into my running. No wonder I had trouble running!

Lesson learnt, pack less run faster!

If anyone has any tips on training and carry weight when running, I'd be interested to know them.


*Not his actual words!