Whilst I haven't been beating myself up about not completing the 26 miles on Saturday night, I have been dwelling on that training session since then.
These are my reflections about it;
1) Night-time running takes a lot more concentration (even with torches), and particularly on lumpy fields - this is likely why I felt so wiped out on Sunday but thankfully no running until Wednesday morning, so plenty of time to mentally and physically recover.
2) On race day, I will not be running laps of the same route - it is 100km from Lewknor to Avebury - every step will take me to something new, especially as that entire trail is new to me. Running the same loop over and over again, clearly take an entirely different level of mental fortitude, that probably has to be built up.
3) I did not bonk, so like all recent long runs, I got it right nutritionally.
4) I've noticed in recent long-runs that as I get close to 18 miles, my feet swell up and there is no space between my toes and the shoes, so today I bought a new pair of trail shoes that are a half a size bigger than my current ones. The existing ones will still be good for short to medium runs, plus I could use them in proper cross country races, where you end waist-deep in ditches of icy cold water.
5) I choose not to complete the other 8 miles on Sunday, as there was no gain to do it, and I could give myself that extra day to recover.
6) Time-limited training sessions do not reflect race reality where a lot of time-slack is built into how long I need to complete it by. On race day if I can do 15 minute miles, I complete it in 16 hours - I have 22 hours to do it in, in order to get my shuttle back to the beginning.
7) Running two hours in the dark was a big achievement, especially as I had no prior night-time running experience.
As a final point, on Saturday I did 42,000 steps. On Sunday I did 2,000 steps.
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