I was worried I would not be able to run this race as I had not been well the few days before but I got up in the morning and felt OK so I ate my porridge. My breakfast seemed to take a long time to settle, I think it was just nerves because by the time I got to the race it had settled. We arrived early so had plenty of time to park in the dedicated field. During the walk of about ½ mile to the start, I was relieved to see lots of ladies in pink.
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| walk to the start |
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| warm up |
I arrived in time for the hanky man warm up which I did some just not all as I did not want to ware myself out before the race, my normal warm up is a walk before run, none the less I enjoy it. We all got divided in to Fast Runners, Joggers and Walkers where I joined the Joggers being more my pace. Following a count down we were off.
I went off fast, having not worked out yet how to start slower, excitement seems to kick in and I just go with the flow. It was very crowed at the start, soon it thinned out and I found myself over taking and being over took by the same group of people, throughout the race.
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| half way |
The course was all on grass which was nice. It was also more undulating than I am used to so I found myself walking a lot more than I hoped, think not wearing my Ipod also contributed to this. It was a two lap course so at halfway the winner past at 40min ,a 5k PB for me. I felt much happier with myself and stopped the harsh head talk. The second lap was so much easier and felt a lot shorter until that is the last 1k where we went a different way up a hill and down again before finishing I was worn out and thought I would end up walking across the finish line. However my family cheered for me and energy came from somewhere and I ran across in 1hr 32 min.
Got my medal and swag bag ,which has things like tooth paste and super absorbent wipes. Although I felt exhausted. I did sigh up for next year, got to keep going.
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| swag |
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| Pre race |
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| Post race |
