Last long run (& kit test)

Having waded through the mud at Wimpole parkrun yesterday two minutes slower than the last double New Year's Day parkruns on 1st, today was supposed to be a 2 hour bike session and I was never going to do it.  I would have done had we been moved back home, but we're not and it's still an additional 2.5 hours on top of a training session in the gym/pool to get there and back and changed & showered etc.  It simply doesn't happen.

So, today I'm taking advantage of a still unfamiliar area to do a long run and try out the new Garmin Edge 800 as a navigation device for running.  It's designed for cycling use but, heckit, with a small unit, colour screen and a full map of the UK & Ireland loaded up and route finding with great GPS positioning, why on earth would I not use it for running?

Country to Capital is an unmarked route and I don't know which national trails it follows (it seems to use quite a few different ones along the way), so the chance of me getting lost before hitting the canal is pretty high without some route finding with me.

This morning I plotted a route, a nice little 21.5km up the Waterlink Way - around the Greenwich area, the O2, The Excel centre and back through Greenwich and Blackheath -  uploaded it to the Garmin and off I went.

And it was horrible.  The run itself, I felt awful, stiff in the back, slow, wanted to walk etc.  Fabulous!  Well, I'd rather this happened now than next weekend 'cause getting through 45 miles in that condition would be probably rather unpleasant.  i.e. 11 hours of miserableness.

7 minute kms is very slow for the kind of heart rate I was pushing today.  So summat wasn't right.  But I'm sure after a taper into the weekend, I'll be fine.

The navigation using the Garmin was great though.  Really good.  Very happy with that.