Yesterday I finished lessons early, and good transport connections meant I was home before 1. Perfect conditions, then, for a long run. Originally I had planned to do it on Friday after I had got off work, but it was forecast to rain: I don't fancy running in the rain, so I chickened out and opted to do it in 32 deg C (90F) heat instead. I unearthed my hibernating Camelbak ("But Master, I've probably got algae lining my innards," it cried) and set off after lunch.

Despite being warmer in terms of temperature compared to the previous day, it was cool when I first set off. My grumpy Camelbak made few sloshing noises, to my relief. The plan was to go 10 laps around the 1K-ish park, aim for a 6-min lap time, then hopefully go under an hour for 10K. "Hang on," I hear you say, "I thought this was supposed to be a long run." For an out of shape person, it is! The last time I ran that distance was over a year ago. Having done little running over the colder months, 10K wasn't just going to be long, it was going to be uncharted territory.

I decided that after every 2 laps I would run in the opposite direction around the park. This wasn't so much for the change in scenery as to help me with the counting. I mentally drift off or long runs, swims, etc, and didn't want to be wondering how many laps I'd done in the middle of things. I decided every two laps I would also stop and take a drink and pause for a breath: I guess I was trying to divide my distance into smaller manageable bits.

I checked my watch after the first two laps: 10:30. Ahead of schedule. Hmm. If I went under 6 minutes for the first few laps I would have a few extra seconds for the later laps to slow down a bit. The first 5 laps were relatively alright.

Laps 6-8 was when things started to unravel. By this time I was sipping water two to three times per lap, pausing each time to do so, and losing valuable seconds in addition to the time I was spending walking to catch my breath. Lap times dropped (6:35s, 6:45s) and going into the last two laps, I was disappointed to see I couldn't just keep up this languid pace and hope to finish under an hour.

One of the good things about running, I feel, is that the mental discipline developed when you are forced to dig deep carries over to other aspects of your life and makes you a stronger person, less frazzled by things that might get to others. Two laps to go, I tried every trick I could to keep going. Run 50 paces, walk 10. Run 30 seconds, walk 5. Keep going, keep going, the only reason why you're here is to go under one hour. Run 30 seconds, walk 5. How will you feel when you miss it by a few seconds? Run 50, walk 10. Don't forget to drink - no time to stop now, just grab the tube and sip on the fly (sounds gross, actually). Somehow through all that mind-blitzing I found enough to make myself plod along. I ran past my marker and clocked 59:46.

So I achieved my aim of doing 10K under an hour, and I was very pleased with that. It's not a world-class result to crow about – judging from the blogs, many of the other triathletes could do it in their sleep - but it’s good enough for me. An even more pleasant surprise awaited me when I got home. After going over my route using Microsoft Autoroute, it seems, even by the most conservative estimate, that I'd been doing 1.1K per lap, so I'd actually done 11K in under an hour. For someone who has only recently returned to running after a 6 (7? 8?) month hiatus, 11K in an hour can't be all that bad, right?