Guus Bosman

Today I ran 8 miles (12.5 kilometers), my longest run so far. Last week I ran on a trail, this time my run was mainly through downtown Durham, from Whole Foods to Northgate Mall, Brightleaf Square and back. It went pretty well, and without any major pains. I do feel my left ankle a little bit stiff, but not painful. I can definitely see the benefit on increasing mileage slowly and giving my body time to get used to these longer distances. I'm pretty optimistic about my chances of successfully running a half marathon in two months.

If I can, I should try to run more on trails as opposed to the sidewalk; I really think it is better for my body, impact-wise. The good thing about this downtown route is that it is pretty fast (no big hills); even though it was 1.5 miles more than last week my total time was only 8 minutes longer.

Instead of running north on 9th street, as the route calls for, I took Broad Street because I forgot to turn into 9th. They run in parallel so the distance is the same, and Broad Street is a pretty street also.

After 60 minutes I had a energy gel, strawberry/banana, which I didn't like as much as the chocolate gel of last week. I should change my socks: I run with cotton socks and they get wet after a while. During the week they're fine, but for longer runs it's not nice. The weather was beautiful this morning, very clear and sunny. Not very warm, but nice. I brought 12 oz. of water (both bottles half full). Next time I can bring more.

Total time was 91:08 minutes, so 11.4 minutes/mile.