Running down the canal

Work commitments took me to Birmingham over the weekend and as such I couldn't get my usual long bike ride in. So I decided to take my trainers and do a couple of longish runs to make up for it.

We were staying near the airport and not knowing the area that well I looked up a route on the internet. After finding what I thought was a good path and preparing the necessary things I would need, headlamp, reflective vest, food, gloves, etc I headed off into the dusk on Friday night. The first 2km were pretty rubbish, heading out past the train station over the A roads, but eventually I got onto the cycle path that took me down to a canal tow path. The path was good in places, terrible in others but the fading light was becoming an issue. I let my eyes adjust to the bad light and kept on going under some pretty intimidating bridges and past some dodgy looking canal boats, and then at 8km I turned back put on my headlamp and completed the 15km-ish run in 1 hour 15mins. On Sunday morning I did the same route but this time went out for 10.6km to make it up to a nice 21.1km run in 1hr 46mins. It was much better running with the sun coming up then chasing the sun going down!

I felt good on both runs and never really pushed myself. I know I can run faster but at the moment I am just happy to build my endurance and get comfortable with long runs. I do miss the bike though and will have to settle with a couple of turbo session's this week before the ballbuster.

This weeks photo is the canal tow path I ran along outside Birmingham.