Sunday is Funday.

Sunday is long, slow run day - the best running day of the week. It's the time for breaking distance barriers, pushing myself, and, most of all, having more than a little bit of time to get into my own head and just get out there and run. Today was great.

Today was my 90 minute run according to the program I am using, and I went 16.01km at an average pace of 5:48/km, though this would have been much higher had I not run a 7:09 last kilometre. Stop lights are the bane of my running existence, and I got whacked with a particularly big one during my last kilometre. Seemingly, my iPhone application didn't pick up on me jogging back and forth and just kept the clock running. Oh well.

The most important thing I suppose to me today was that though I am aiming to run at a marathon pace of 6:00/km, I quite comfortably ran at around 5:45/km for the majority of the distance without feeling the need to lift up or slow down. It felt great. I really feel right now that a sub-4 hour marathon is within grasp, even though I know I have a long way to go (about 26 kilometres!).

Injury watch went well, with the only issue being that the calves were quite tight over the first few kilometres, but settled down after that. By the end, I was cruising, and could have gone for a fair bit more, but after my adventures during the week with running hard, I didn't want to push the risk of an injury. So, smart running will get me to the finish line at Southport - not hard running.

I also stepped up another gear in my running craziness by buying some protein powder from a health food shop to help with recovery. I'm so lucky to have such a supporting wife (who should be being supported by me, given she is doing a Master of Arts by research), who insists that I buy things like protein powder and looks after my nutrition. I'm a lucky, lucky guy.

Tried something new with the music situation today, to assist in avoiding any more white guy rap moments that may cause some further undue embarrassment. I went with a bit of movie score action for early on in the run (the first 5km), opting for 'The Gladiator Suite' by the Prague Symphony Orchestra, and then 'Duel Of The Fates' by the indefatigable (great word) John Williams. Worked well, and 'All These Things I've Done' by The Killers also went down great. I'm starting to get my music groove well and truly spot on.

I'm disappointed to say that I won't be undertaking any competition runs any time over the next three weeks or so, owing to lack of funds. I really wanted to run the Canberra Half Marathon, or perhaps even the Geelong Half Marathon - but it looks like I am going to be dirt poor over the next few weeks, so I shall behave myself instead.

Well, the next week shapes up to be rest week according to the program, so I have to resist the urge to push on, lest I hurt myself. Sunday 6th June is what it is all about in this training, I can't wait to go the 3 hours (which at my current pace will be around 32km) and be ready for this thing.