Day 238 Saturday 25th August 15.5 miles : miles to date 1577.5 I was due to run a half marathon this weekend, which I haven't done for about five years. My shorter races in recent times have been marathons, although on the Voldemort schedule I have had a crack at 5 and 10k's with a good reduction in my PB's for both. My current PB for a half is 1;41 something and I fancy I might beat that in a race. The absence of any close races meant that me and the Flying Scotsman plumped for a fifteen miler at around seven minute mile pace instead. As I parked up at the meeting point, I saw a shady looking character in the bushes so I locked the car door. As he emerged from the shrubs, having made a bit of extra room, I realised I was right. It was George. I declined to shake his hand due to the lack of hand wash and we headed off. Both of us weren't feeling overly strong as a result of some harder runs in the week and my school boy error of eating far too much last night, which sat in my stomach like a lead weight and made me feel very bloated. The first mile was around 7;15 I would guess and the next a bit slower, as we had to climb a hill which wasn't too bad. Once over the brow, we eventually picked it up a little, although still went through five miles in about 35:30 odd, a little behind. It was then just a question of trying to maintain a steady pace which we almost did, with some fluctuations. We went through 13.1 miles still keeping it steady around 1;32;22 and eventually came home in 1;45;44 at an average of 7:03 per mile. George finished stronger than me and had an average of 7;02, but he's a whippet. I would rather have finished sub seven, but there are positives in there. In the 5-15 miles section, we were only about 14 seconds off target pace in total in what were the harder miles. Without the harder runs, food, absence of race crowd, some nutrition on route ( we didn't bother with water bottles or food/gels) and with a taper, I quite fancy taking a bit more time off my half PB and get an official one as well. And heck, we were only three quarters of a minute off the target time so on the whole, I feel a happy chappy. It was far easier to run with George than try that on my own. When I felt tired in the second half, he kept the pace ticking over nicely, so thank you my wee haggis munching friend. The last half mile was a slow warm down around the forest centre when about five runners went past us. I tried to get George to pick it up again, but the poor young lad's joints had already started to stiffen up. The youth these days really have to get off the play stations and out the door...