Since a few weeks ago, I trained together with a few "ultra' runners. To them, running 10km or even 17km is too short. So, this week, I have decided to run 21km or 22km together with them.
To them, running at 7mins pace is a little to fast. So, we started with around 8min or 8:30min pace. Running at this pace was a bit of a challenge to me. For one, my cadence is low and I'd expect knee discomfort after running for awhile, probably around 10km. Strangely, no knee discomfort this time. However, at around 12km, after running for 1h 44mins with two short walking break (for maybe 1 min each), the bottom of my right foot became very painful. So, I took a walking break. I tried to run again after the walking break with slight adjustment in landing position (to be closer to big toe), the pain seems to be bearable after the break and the adjustment. Thus, I continued with journey back to the starting point with around 8 min pace.
After 16km, I felt that I still have energy left with my heart rate was just around 145bpm, I picked up my pace a little bit. However, I didn't go fast but with only around 7min/km. I wanted to run stride after 19km. As my watch signaled me at 19km mark, I ran stride. But I was too tired and could only do 6:10min/km pace. It was after 2h 35mins of jogging! The longest run I had so far. Before this, the longest run I had was during the NTCRC 3-state HM where I ran for 2h 22min (for 22km).
After 5x of my usual stride, I slowly jog back to the starting point. While jogging back, I was still debating if I should run a bit further to make this the longest (in distance) run. But I gave up the idea and stopped after reaching HM distance. Too tired, that's it.
2 h 45mins run. The longest so far. Now that I experienced how it feels for FM and I really respect those who finished FM regardless of time!
To me, definitely more training is needed to handle the time and distance!
