a longer run at last

Sunday
Club hosting the last of the Sunday league XC runs today, so teenbeanz and I went down to marshall. I took the camera as it was a beautiful snowy morning. Failed to take any pics inthe park or of the race, but sad physicist that I am I had to take this one of the 'frost shadow'.



Monday
I haven't done anything longer than 6 miles for a month, and most of the runs in the last month have been around 3 miles as I have had to squeez them in before work.

So it was time to just get out there and do it.

So a 2:30 run was on the schedule so @ 14 mm that was about 11 miles, so I got up very earl;y for porridge and then was ready to go out with MrBeanz when he went to work - dropping me off just under 11 miles from home meant I HAD to run home. After the usual warm up 20 minutes and plenty of stretching it felt good and the planned 14 mm were not materialising - trying to keep my HR at 135-145, which is reasonably comfortable, I was running rather quicker than I expected. Ah well, I seem to be getting fitter at last!

So the numbers:

Mile	Pace	AHR
1	13:11	137
2	13:23	138
3	12:33	140
4	12:44	140
5	13:05	139
6	12:43	141
7	12:37	138
8	12:41	137
9	12:57	135
10	13:29	139	start of killer hill
11	16:12	128	walked most of this mile
11	13:14	137	2:25:45

I have not done that pace on a long run before, so wonder whether I was going too fast? The elevation looked like this :

Perhaps not as undulating as my other recent long runs over this route:

see what I mean about undulating and killer hill?

and the average paces for those were :

14 miles at 13:53 AHR 134

9 miles at 13:36 and AHR 135

Perhaps I am getting fitter if I can run for longer and faster at a slightly higher HR?