With the Ballycotton 10 (http://www.ballycottonrunning.com/) only a week from tomorrow, I decided to do my long run today to give an extra day recovery. According to my plan I had to do 18miles but after last weeks debacle I was a little nervous. Got a good nights sleep last night so that was a good start at least. Also picked up some powerbars yesterday to keep the fuel reserves up. Weather was nice too - mild with little wind.

Started off nice and easy, a little faster than I had planned but my HR was low so I did n't think too much of it. Was doing a 6mile loop and after the first loop felt fine. It was at this point I took my first chunk of the powerbar which I had divided into four. Second loop the inevitable slowdown happened but only lasted about 2 miles before the carbs started kicking in. Before I knew it I was onto the last loop and I subconciously picked up the pace (Eating 2 more chunks might have had something to do with it!). Felt strong and all of the last five miles were sub 7 minutes with the last being 6.31!! I know I should have held myself back a bit - hopefully I won't be regretting this next week but it did my confidence the world of good so maybe it was worth it! It's amazing the difference taking on fuel makes. I will try to experiment with different brands to see what works best.