Basingstoke Half Marathon Training Run #6

Happy Sunday. I've had such a relaxing day - I've watched 3 episodes of Obese: A Year To Save My Life (I love it! So addictive and Chris Powell is such a cool man), walked my greyhounds and been for a long run.
Maxx and I went on an 8-mile loop at around 12.30 - our longest training run so far. It was quite warm, so I felt a little uncomfortable at first, but I didn't want that to be an excuse to take it easy. The first 4 miles were comfortable, but the fifth mile was surprisingly hard given the route was flat.
After a 5-minute walk, we ran another 1.6 miles. By this time I had been having stomach cramps for 40 minutes, so decided to walk the last mile home. I might have collapsed next to a roundabout first, feeling very nauseous...
The last 1.6 miles were exhausting, partly because it was the longest training run we've done so far and sometimes having a walk makes it harder to get going again. After analysing our times for both sections, it became clear why we had burnt out - we ran 5 miles in 43 minutes, which is about 8 1/2 minutes a mile. That's a pretty good pace, if I say so myself. After our walk, it took 21 minutes to run 1.6 miles - really slow in comparison.
I think it comes down to pacing - while I'm pleased we ran 5 miles so fast, we cannot afford to burn out so quickly during the half marathon. But this is precisely why training is so important - making these mistakes now means we'll be much better prepared during the race!
The half marathon is 6 weeks away today, and I'm feeling a little apprehensive when I think about the big hills. However, I know that getting out on the course and running up them will reassure me - it's easy to build something up in your mind to be much scarier than it actually is, and I'm anxious of failing to finish because I'm running for charity. But I will finish, as I said in my last post - I just would rather sprint through the finish line, rather than be dragged across it.
Here's a breakdown of the run: 5.0 miles, 43 minutes 0.4 miles, 5 minutes (walk)
1.6 miles, 21 minutes 1 mile walk home - we didn't time this as we were cooling down Total = 8.0 miles, 6.6 running

Post-run bath with Lush's Fizzbanger bathbomb, a p-shake and some quality reading