11.7 miles up a hill

Took to the road again this weekend, but instead of my usual solo run I met up with a friend who happened to be down my neck of the woods on the weekend. He suggested a bit of hill running, which being honest is not my strong suit, but needless to say am always keen to attempt to make an improvement.

We met up at 9 am in Spiddal and settled on heading towards Na Forbacha at a nice steady pace, the plan was to be around the 10 - 10:30 mark for pace, but found ourselves for the first part clocking about 9:45 - 9:50 (which was probably my fault, pacing my LSR is suspect at the best of times).

As we reached Forbacha, we turned left and faced into the uphill section of the course, which I won't lie I was expecting to have to stop going halfway up as my hill running is crap at best. But as we started to knock off the miles and noticed that it was relatively comfortable until about the 6 mile mark, where the climb was nearly at a 45 degree angle (if not sharper). This would normally be the point where I would go and say "sod it" but when you have good company to keep you going you force yourself on.

We reached the Moycullen Road and started out towards Spiddal again, which was relatively flat compared to what we had encountered earlier in the run, bar a few short rolling hills we finally felt it start to decline downhill and coming towards the tail end of the run (approx 9.5 - 10 miles in) and started to find a small bit of comfort even with the sore legs and knees

We landed back in Spiddal after a 11.7 mile run in a respectable 1:57:18. Needless to say was knackered.

Distance: 11.73 miles
Time: 1:57:18
Pace: 10min/mile
Climb: 155m
Garmin Link