Sunday, 12 October 2008

It ain't over 'til the fat lady sings!

And quite frankly there's a few miles left in me yet.

Today, I nervously agreed to participate in Milburn Harriers' 10-mile handicap race. I have only run 10 miles once since I found out I was preggers, so I was quite sceptical about my ability. Plus the route was over the Balloch Horseshoe, which has many, many cheeky hills. But hey ho, I thought I'd give it a bash. Worse case scenario would be throwing in the towel and walking round.

It was a gorgeous crisp (code for bloody freezing) and sunny day, so there was no excuse not to get out there and enjoy it. After going to the wrong place for the start we arrived just after the meeting time of 9am. Some of the runners had been sent off. My start time was 9:31am - based on last week's 10K time. I set off with two gals from Millies, but decided to push on after a mile. I was pretty sure they'd catch me on the hills, but I was on my own for the rest of the course - just passing a few runners who started earlier.

Apart from having to walk on a few of the steeper hills, I felt fantastic. I really enjoyed every minute of it. On the last mile, I spotted three of the early start runners in front of me. I tried to catch them, but they pipped me to the post by 20 seconds. They did say seeing me behind spurred them on.

I finished the 10.26m course in fourth position in 1:40:36... 7 minutes ahead of Sonic. the fact that I had a 43 minute head-start is neither here nor there.

Thanks to everyone at Milburn Harriers for letting us gatecrash the race. It was really nice to meet up with such great bunch of people. And the post-race homemade carrot cake and chocolate biscuits made the run really worthwhile. Trust me, Jim, carrot cake is one of your five a day.

1 comment:

N.D. said...

Wow - good for you!!!
Nice job!