Progressing nicely!!

Hello All,
I've had a good week this week with my training coming along nicely.
I'm up to 6 miles now which is the furthest I've run in a single run.
As mentioned before I've played football at professional and semi-professional level for many years, but long distance running has never been something I've tried.
I must admit that it does feel strange because I always feel like I'm running too slowly and hence I blast off at a high tempo pace and then after a few miles realise that I have to scale it back and slow down, as I can't maintain it.
I need to learn to pace myself for the longer duration and hence I'm thinking of investing in a effective sports watch so I can track my pace better.
I've also started to incorporate injury prevention sessions into my training, hence I run Monday, Wednesday, Friday,  and do injury prevention circuits at the gym on Tuesday and Thursday for my core and upper body. I'm conscious that all the hard road pounding that I need to do will put some real stress on my body and hence trying to prevent and minimise this impact feels like the right thing to do.
I generally rest over weekends although I'll soon start to do my long runs on Sunday to get me in tune for long distances on Sunday (which will be race day).
Another thing which I realised is that when running 6 miles plus, you really need to take some water, so you don't dehydrate, something I've never really thought about too much in the past, but is essential for the long runs. I did quite a bit of research on various methods and found some really good articles, this one was good
as it anlaysed many different types
http://running.about.com/od/hydrationcarriers/tp/tophydrationcarriers.htm
In the end I plumped for a Nike belt (pictured) and wore it yesterday and it was excellent - really comfy and after a while I'd forgotten I had it on. It's got 4 small bottles which are really easy to load in and out of the pockets and use when running. It's also got 2 pockets one for your iPod and a bigger pocket for keys, phone, gels or similar.

I'm also going to use this blog to start putting on some of my favourite tracks which I often listen to when running. Here's a classic from Radiohead and one of my fave songs. The mix of the guitar and piano in it is heavenly!!
Enjoy!!

Radiohead - Karma Police

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lZHoci2Wjs0