How long is a piece of string?

So one of the things I hate about running is the maths. There's the miles to kilometre conversion. Then there's the pace maths: 6 minutes per km is what per hour? Is how many kms per minute? What is that in miles? Then there's calculating running time, splits etc.

Anyway this is why I was doing random math on a bar coaster this afternoon.

I had, inspired by @canteenrun, though that I could do a 5:25 finish - but that's one hour and five minutes for every ten kms of distance. Easy peasy for a ten km, but five of them with navigation?!

So I checked the race website and found out that for a woman to finish that time you'd be in the top ten so that's that race time put to bed! Then I saw there were quite a few DNFs and even more DNSs. I vow to not be either of these.

Unfortunately the race forum is down so I had to rely on Runners World - that very cliquely place where someone's always having a rant. And I learned that many many people get lost, that there are hills and you will ultimately get lost and have to jump over a fence. Worse I may have to trust in other people's sense of direction.

So now I am planning to be out there anything from six to eight hours. That's like a working day. A flight to another continent. A birthing labour period.

Exhale.

For those interested in numbers, my longest training run this year to date is 35km at 3:42 averaging at 6:20 pace - and not a negative split. I'll try and run this Sunday's 40km at 6:30 in the first half to see if I can finish stronger...