Race for life 2011

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.

walk to the start

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.

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.

swag

Pre race

Post race