So, after months of training Sunday 23rd October came around pretty quickly! My lovely sister Helen had agreed to run with me and keep me going and I had arranged for my friends and family to be at certain points around the course with jelly babies/drinks etc. Very organised you might think? Well, it certainly came back to bite me in the bum later on in the race!
The atmosphere before the race started was electric and it was incredibly well organised making it easy for the runners to get to where they need to be. As we were waiting with the rest of our 'wave' the nerves started to kick in and I was at that point, ready to go home! Luckily for me.....I didn't.
As the race started it was evidence straight away why I wanted to do it in the first place. The support was incredible and with the first 2 miles being downhill, I was able to bank some minutes, something which I knew I needed to do. At 3 miles, a great surprise as we saw our Mom and our Step dad Andy standing and cheering us on, this was NOT part of the very well organised plan that I had mentioned earlier!! As we kept going the atmosphere just got better and better, live bands out in the street and everyone out of their houses banging on saucepans or anything else that they could find!
At 6 miles I was bang on 12 minute mile pace, and felt really comfortable. The jelly babies from my friends at 5 miles and sports drinks were keeping me going......for now! As we ran into Cannon Hill Park (8 miles) Mom was there again giving us a big cheer, and more jelly babies, big mistake! Through to 10 miles (past the big female raving Vicar, I kid you not!) and I started to feel sick, and knew straight away I'd had too much sugar, oops! I hit 10 miles at 2 hours so I was on for a respectable time, but around the corner was a big fat hill, not good.
There was no way that I could run it, so we power walked our way to the top, grabbed some water to flush out some of that sugar and carried on running past 11 miles to where we saw Dad, our Step mom Lesley and Brother Matt. I think I was close to crying at this point, and it wasn't long before I started retching....not a good look! I was getting increasingly frustrated with myself so Helen told me to calm down and have a strong word with myself, which I did! We walked to 12 miles and then ran the last mile and down Broad Street where there were so many people shouting and cheering the runners on. I came over the line at 2h48mins although I'm taking a couple of minutes off that for a quick toilet stop at 9 miles!!
I will definately run this race again, and after being so impressed with the organisation and support will try out some more of the 'Great Run' series next year. So what did I learn from the race? As much as you dislike water, drink it, not sports drinks and not as many jelly babies! I know from training that I have run further and not had as many problems, or maybe that hill was really just THAT BAD!
No comments:
Post a Comment