G.N.R.

Well, another one done I say as if some seasoned athlete who has done shedloads of half marathons, however not to have anything taken away from me i do feel rather chuffed with myself if for no other reason than I lopped a massive 20 minutes of my time from last year. This year it was different somehow, for a start I was lucky to get to the start line at all because of ankle problems, however after almost daily core exercises, side raises, press ups, etc etc, and the help of my mates dragging me along on a few long runs I got there, at the start, I was almost late, the bus lost its way can you believe! driver got out and after checking with the bus in front that he was going to same place, he followed, and we got there, walking down to my start pen I watched the wheelchair athletes set of, smiled at the grace of Haille and found my pen behind him (qite a way behind him it must be said) once in there I spotted the red hair of Martin, so we waited together, and then we were of, I managed a tap on Ants hand, and then watched as Martin sped into the distance, I settled down into what I thought was a comfortable zone,in the melee of runners, complete with my red St Raphael cap, prayer beads, and shades. and my sister name on my back. I looked at my garmin and saw I was doing just of 10 min miles and thought maybe I was going a bit to fast, but felt ok but decided to slow a little, splitting the race into 3 parts the first third "let em all go" and I did that remembering Toms advice when I asked him how to run a race, Ive use his advice so many times and it always works, for me anyway. after about 5 miles I sat with the rest tucking behind people, I felt it was tough and wanted to get the race over, people just stopping right in front of me, making me run around them, I was constantly searching for grass to run on, and was quite irritated for whatever reason, I thought of what Tony Oadenshaw had said, anybody got any tweaks, sore achilles, aching joints? well just get on with it, then I thought of My sister saying dont give up running I want to be remembered, and plodded on with slightly more purpose, looking ahead, the orange segments handed out were wonderful, and the wet wipes so refreshing,the Marie Curie supporters were great, all the supporters were great, cheering for everyone, so amazing, I constantly sipped water, on the way round and even grabbed a jelly baby, sucked the sugar of and spat it out, I felt my body was working well sweating well, and the temp was good. towards the end the last mile was very hard and as I turned that corner I started looking for Ian, I coulndnt see him or anyone though I thought I heard someone call my name but there was so many people there 10 deep needle and haystack springs to mind, at the finish a lady patted me on the back and said well done, and I went searching for Ian about an hour later we found each other, and I hugged him close. I hope to do it again next year all being well.
I t took me 2hrs 18mins and 41 seconds, I came 110th in my age category. I drunk over 2 litres of water during the race, and used up 1500 cals, back to normality now, healthy eating and drinking, runclub with the gang and look forward to winter training at least twice a week is the next challenge.