NSPCC MK Half

There was a lot of build up to today. Getting ready last night I realised my usual race gear was in the wash basket, so I did a last minute wash and managed to get my gear out to dry before bed. Then realised I was planning to wear my Scope running gear to an NSPCC event. Deciding I didn't want to be politically incorrect I changed my outfit last minute and went for something that didn't advertise my charity! 

Best thing about today was meeting @Claire0, we've been chatting for ages on Twitter and it was nice to see the woman behind the wetsuit! lol. We met up before the race, put our bags in, and did the usual pre race stuff and warm up. I forgot my Lucozade in my bag so had to run back just before the start time, not sure if was a good or bad thing that I didn't get to start with Claire since she did 1:37!

Coming into the race I really wanted to get a PB, my last PB was set in March at the other MK Half and well MK is my home so I should know the area! Setting off I felt quite good, the first mile was congested as the lane was narrow, but I was able to run on the embankment to get ahead of the slower runners. The course itself was deceiving, it started off on a gentle uphill gradient that wasn't really any bother, so I waited for it to level out... and I waited and I waited. I don't know why, but for some reason I had it in my head that this was meant to be a flat course... We went down redways, bridle paths (very smelly!), canal paths and even past a field of sheep! It was up, up, up, and hardly ever down at all! Not what I was expecting at all it's a wonder I got through!

Once I'd settled in to the race and found my pace I clocked a couple of runners that were running slightly faster than me and decided to try to keep up with them. There was one woman in particular who had long purple pants who was just in front and constantly checking her watch - obviously looking for a PB too! I got ahead of her, she got ahead of me, and we went on like that for the first six miles. After that I really couldn't keep up and thought I was going to loose it. There was one point where I was running so slowly I thought I was walking! I took a gel just after 6 miles and kept pushing through, I had no competition to guide me any more and I knew my speed was fading fast! I was checking my watch and kept telling myself that I needed to pick up the pace if I wanted to make that PB, but it didn't translate to my legs. I was trying to calculate my finish time, but my brain is foggy when I run and even though maths is my strong point sometimes you need to stop to think properly and that was not an option!

Reaching 10 miles was a blessing - the end was in sight, now I knew I could do it! My watch read 1:38 and I knew the last 5km would take me a maximum of 30min, my PB for 5km is 26mins so at a push I could still come in under 2:08! I told myself I'd just got out of bed to do a 5k run and I could hit 26mins on fresh legs. I put a mantra in my head; 5k Fresh Legs, 5k Fresh Legs! Staying focussed the pain in my legs eased and they did feel fresh, well for a bit anyway. I kept pushing through past 11miles, past 12... On the approach to 13 I saw the purple pants lady and thought about staying on her shoulder for a bit so she wouldn't have time to push past me, but the decided I needed to just keep going. I mean, if I could catch up with her she must be tired to have dropped her pace or I was just running that fast that I could still beat her anyway! So I ran past her and I don't know if she picked up my pace, but once she was out of sight I focussed on the finish line and pushed through to complete in 2:07:21!

Amazing, absolutely amazing! Only problem was I didn't have time to enjoy the moment I had to rush off to go to London for my little brother 18th birthday. All in all a great day, even though my legs ache and my nephew broke my medal! Gotta love kids!

Asics British London 10k

Wow it's been ages since I raced! I have to say I've missed it, but enjoyed the rest! I was actually due to run a 10k Race For Life in Milton Keynes a while back, but changed my mind on the day - just wasn't in the mood! Today wasn't like that though, today was a good day!


I went out for a long run last weekend and my ankle really twinged, so I stayed off it all week (running wise anyway). Which is a good thing as I never taper so I guess I was forced too and with the NSPCC MK Half coming up next weekend I wasn't about to take any risks!


I hadn't really thought too much about a plan for today, but I met up with a nice young gentleman called Darren at Wembley Park station and we traveled together so target were discussed as always! My basic plan was just to do what I could and whatever my ankle allowed me to do... Luckily it allowed me to do really well! My last 10k was the Bupa 10,000, which I completed in just over an hour (1:00:40), I had really hoped to come in under an hour and was quite disappointed with my time. If I could get under an hour I would be happy, but would my ankle hold out under the pressure?


The journey this week wasn't too disrupted by Transport for London's engineering works and the tension started to build in me as I saw more and more runners getting on at various stops. Not having run all week, I was a mass of nerves, Would I make it, would I do okay, Would I get under an hour, would I be carried home on a stretcher? Far fetched I know, but I was seriously anxious for some unknown reason! Talking to Darren helped to keep me focussed and we made our way to the baggage area which was quite easy to find, but could have done with some signs once we exited the tube. From the baggage area to the start was a complete mess - people everywhere and no sense of organisation whatsoever. The toilets were so few, which such big queues that we decided to give them a miss and apparently there was a 50p charge! I didn't even see the start line until 30mins after the race started. It was actually located on the opposite side of the road from where we were all queuing, I can see the logic in it given that there was a parade that went past us whilst we waited, but at the time I just wanted to see the start line! Given that we started after 10:00, official start was 09:35, the elites would have been done and dusted before my trainers even got sweaty!


I took my time at the start, got my iPhone playlist ready, made sure my earphones were in properly; I was still nervous and I needed the ritual before I got going. I started well and after the first 1km checked my pace 06:00, slow start, but I could still get under an hour. Because I started so far at the back I had a lot of people to run around for the whole race! I spent a lot of time running up on the 40cm pavements that ran alongside the underpasses! The atmosphere was really good, lots of people calling your name or charity out. There was a Scope cheering point so I got a good cheer and gave them a wave on the way round too, which was nice. The underpasses, well the one underpass that we ran through twice, really shook my Garmin up, lost reception then jumped to the next km once it returned. Jumped to 5km then 6km in mere minutes, wish I could run that fast really!


The toughest part was 7-9km, I couldn't rely on my Garmin anymore as it was way out and there wasn't a 8km marker so I felt like I was running forever! Didn't have much left to sprint at the end, but I did what I could to pick the pace up once I could (finally) see the finish. Finish did feel a bit strange though as I'm used to people giving out goody bags and water etc. We got given water and Gatorade, but had to make our way back to the baggage claim to get our sparse goody bags with our bags. The BG was unimpressive, as was the medal, consisted of a asics pen, asics wrist band, my fav granola bar, those herb sweets and some menthol chewing gum... 


The route was great, much better than Bupa 10,000 and it didn't feel so hard, less climbs I think. The crowd and atmosphere were great too, I would have like more signage and guiding people to the baggage area and start, pens based on finish time and much more goodies please! All in all a good race and I will be back next year!

Southend Half

Just getting to this race was a challenge in itself! What is it with Transport for London and weekend tube closures? To get the 08:10 train to Shoeburyness for Fenchurch Street I had to be on a 06:30 bus from Wembley Park to Golders Green, catch a train from Golder Green to Bank and then walk 18mins to Fenchurch Street. To be honest I knew it said 06:30, but buses run so frequently in London I didn't even aim to get there on time! My mistake; the next bus wasn't for 30 mins - early morning on a Sunday doh! I wasn't too worried, but to make matters worse there was a power failure on the northern line so I had to get off the tube one stop early and get a rail replacement bus from Moorgate to Aldgate and then walk to Fenchurch street...n I eventually arrived at Fenchurch Street at 08:17, just a tad too late for the train. I did manage to get the 08:40 train which got me in to Shoeburyness at 09:48 - giving me 12 mins to find the start line, drop my bag, warm up and get going. Oh dear! 

As it turns out all the worry was for nothing, the start was just across the road from the train station and I walk over with a comrade I met on the train who had been caught out by the power failure like me. We dropped our bags and joined the mass of assembled people. 10:00 came and 10:00 went, but no sign of starting. Gave us a little more time to warm up, stretch and generally calm down - I checked my heart rate at this point, it was around 110bpm! (resting heart rate is normally 70bpm) At 10:20ish I decided I may as well use the loo whilst we were waiting. As luck would have it the race started off as I walked into the cubicle, I did think about not going, but decided I'd only need to go on route if I did that so rushed and still managed to start just short of the back of the group.

If you follow me on dailymile.com you'll know I've had a really crappy week training wise. I did 10km on Monday and 5km on Wednesday and Thursday. I've been feeling really sluggish running around, almost as if someone had locked up my battery cell and given me a most inferior one. I knew I wanted to run faster, I just couldn't find it in me to do so. Anyway, by Thursday I started getting out on my bike more and ditched the running in preparation for today. Even the bike was killing me though; every pedal stroke hurt! Saturday, I had a complete rest day - stayed in bed really late before heading down to London and grabbing dinner and Sex and the City with my two bff. It was meant to be and early night, but the movie didn't finish till after 23:00 and it was nearly midnight by the time I got back to my Mum's! Even so I still didn't get to bed till about 01:30 - yes I should know better! So thinking about times today I was really unsure; I want every race to be about beating my PB, but I was still getting my fitness levels back after injury, this would be my first race without support on my ankle as per my physio's wishes, I had had only four hours sleep, my last half had been 2:14 and if this week was anything to go by I was probably on my running death bed! The guy I met on the train asked me what I was aiming for and I had to say I didn't have a clue, when I told him I was coming back off injury he said take it easy, but then I don't want to! What's a girl to do?

So on to the race, it was a good, flat, fast race, it looped back on itself AND lapped, which I hate, but it was a very accurate course; my Garmin read 13.13. The good thing about loops and laps it that I saw the front runner going back as I was going down and then going down again as did my first run back! And of course he then passed me at 9.5 miles (for him) as I was still getting to 6 miles! 75mins I think he finished in! I did also see my speedy guy I met on the train three times too, we spent 45mins chatting and I never did ask him his name... But at around 10 miles he was going really strong so I'm sure today was a PB for him too. There were plenty of water stations along route, much more than I've ever seen on a race and sponges at every station too. I never normally take a sponge, but even though it was overcast it was still a warm day so I got to grips with them - very nice! 

I refused to look at my watch and check my pace; I wanted to run naturally and see what I could do since I'd had such a bad week. I did allow my self intervals though; I check after the first mile to see if I'd set the right pace, then at 7 miles to see how I was doing at the halfwayish point, and again at 10 miles since I knew there was only 5km to go from there. At mile 1 I was doing 9:33pm, a good pace so I felt confident I would complete in a decent time. At 7 miles I had done 1:09, which meant I was in range of a PB; I was a little shocked, but decided to go for it; my legs felt good, I was sure I could squeeze a little more out of them! At 10 miles I calculated I would have to run the last 5km in 28mins, normally quite achievable, but I had just ran 10 miles! Then on the second loop back around 10.5 miles we took a sharp left turn uphill back to the start. I couldn't keep the pace going uphill, so I did what I could and got back on track when we reached the top. I kept hoping for a bit of downhill to balance it out, but no such luck, it was all twists and turns from there! The finish was within sight a about 600m away, just. I was running along a sea wall at the time - and admiring the ocean?, sea?, I don't know! and couldn't quite work out how to get to it since is was inland. Well a left turn and a right turn later and I figured out where it was. There was a lady in front of me who must've had her whole family out to support her the noise they made! Unfortunately she was one of the people running at my pace who I'd decided to overtake at the end. I sprinted past her and a few other to the finish and to be honest I was quite disappointed. Had ti been a straight line to the finish I would have been confident enough to start sprinting earlier, but the twists and turns meant I thought the end was never coming so I held back a little at the end - everything had started hurting and I needed to finish! 

I came in with a respectable time of 2:09:32, just a tad short of my PB of 2:08:38, but at least now I know I can beat it a few days ago I was wondering if it was time to hang my running shoes up! The best bit about this race was running along the sea front - I could see boats in the water and a few of them were dragged across our path as we ran as well! The smell of the sea air whilst your running is great; something I'll never forget and in the last 1/2 mile the sun came out from behind the clouds and shined now - not so great as I was still running, but at least I made the rest of the day worth it!

Bupa 10,000

If I start from the top I'm going to have to tell you about my night out on the town with my bf & bff (boyfriend and best friend forever). Well let's just say it was a good night and even though we left early (02:30), by the time we'd stopped at Bagel Bites and grabbed something to eat it was after 03:00 when we returned to our hotel. I got up around 07:30, so a severe lack of sleep! Luckily I don't drink so alcohol wasn't contaminating my system! I ended up having a cooked breakfast around 08:30, which is late for me - I like to eat 2 hours before I run. Couldn't be helped so I jumped on the train and made my way down to St. James' Park.

The park was bustling and luckily well signposted. I headed over to the baggage tent then picked up my free Lucozade Sport Lite. I was hoping to meet up with Kate, but I hadn't heard from her so made my way to my pen solo. It was really well organised and and the various waves went off smoothly. I was in the blue wave group A, the red wave was elites and celebrities, blue wave I assumed was club runners and the green wave behind me probably walkers, again an assumption, because on my way back I saw them all walking at the 2-3km stage! My wave got going at 10:10 only 10 mins passed the official start, I had anticipated waiting around a lot longer!

The route was great, the finish was in front of Buckingham Palace, we ran up and down Victoria Embankment into the city turning around into Fenchurch Street and coming back down. I'm glad I brought my own fuel as there was only one water station carefully positioned after 2km and before 8km to feed both runners starting out on one side and returning on the other side. There was also two 'shower stations' sprinkling cool water on runners just after the 5km and 8km points. This was welcomed relief as even though it wasn't a hot, sunny day, it was hard work and I was working up a heat!

I had warmed up quite well, but still started off slowly in the crowds. A good thing as I don't think I would have coped had I gone off at the gun. Even though I drive these streets regularly, I wasn't prepared for the 'peaks and trofs' along the course. In fact I had driven the route just that morning on my way back from the club so I guess I should have been paying attention! The plan was to take the first 5km easy, but still faster then my training times. At the 5km mark I planned to pretend I was running a 5km and see how I got on... Unfortunately at the 5km mark I got a stitch in my side that had me contemplating stopping for a breather, but I refused to slow down and decided to keep going. It was painful, but I reminded myself of why I was there what I wanted to achieve and obviously the lovely medal I would be walking home with! At 7km as my stitch was fading in intensity, I got another one on the other side! I was sooooo glad to see 8km then 9km and stepped up the tempo as much as I could endure. By the time I returned to the park and saw the 400m to go sign I wasn't sure I had much more in me. I wanted to sprint the rest, but whilst my heart was in it my legs were just not getting the message! I did manage to make it the quickest km of the race at 5:12, but I still didn't get in as fast as I wanted. My goal was to get in under 1:00:00 and although I recorded slightly more than 10km at 10.19km, my Garmin time was 1:00:46, 47 seconds more than what I wanted! ARGH!!! One consolation is I know I tried my best and really couldn't have pushed any harder if I tried.

The plan was to have a picnic in the park after the race with my family and my sister and her brood were at the finish when I passed through the 'runners walk'. There was still loads of people finishing when I finally met up with Mum, Gran and my Aunt and the kids and word is its my own fault for being so fast! Had I been slower they would have been able to see me finish, I guess I should have run around again to helped them out! We did have a great day in the end even if my Aunt's idea of making a picnic is calling the local pizza parlour and requesting a delivery! Everyone decided they wanted to race and we ended up having little sprints in the park. My 17 year old cousin and brother both beat me - no surprise there, they are both tall, one's stocky, one's lanky and they didn't just run 10km! I did manage to beat my Mum and my sister who ran in her heels! Minor victories, but we had fun. There was a wonderful Pelican who decided to join us and ran around the green as if he owned the place! Beautiful bird, the kids were scared to feed him, I guess he was a little big for a bird! lol

The one downside to the day was the disappointment of London Underground. The Jubilee line was down so I travelled on the Bakerloo line to Embankment then jumped two stops to St James' Park station. On the way home however, we went back to Embankment to discover there had been a train failure and the Bakerloo line was part suspended to Paddington. So we jumped on the train back past St James' Park to Paddington. Only when we got to Paddington there had been a fire on the line and no trains were running! Needless to say we ended up taking a long walk and jumping on the bus! Despite that it was a great fun day out with the family and oh the medal isn't half bad too!

Hairy Haggis Relay - 23rd May 2010

One of my goals for 2010 was to run in a relay. I tried to pull a couple together last year, but my contact lists of runners was not that long at the time. Luckily I've made a few new runner friends this year (thank God for Twitter!), and when I mentioned that I wanted to run in a relay  Kate piped up and said she had a space on a relay she'd planned in Edinburgh. Two of the other things on my list of goals for 2010 are to run in either Scotland, Ireland or Wales and to go to Edinburgh, tick, tick!


The whole experience was great, we went up on Friday night and arrived around midnight. Saturday we went down to the beach and had lunch at a quaint little pub. After a brief respite in the afternoon we did a bit of reconnaissance and checked out the shuttle bus and start line points and saw a little of the sights of Edinburgh. Not enough time to really enjoy the city, but it did whet my appetite!


The relay was four sections over the 26.2 miles; Kate ran the first leg of 8.1 miles, Nicole ran the second leg of 5.4 miles, I ran the third leg of 8.0 miles and Michele ran the last leg of 4.7 miles. It was unbelievably hot at 26C and boy did we feel it! When I got up that morning it was raining outside. I had dressed in shorts and a shimmel to run, but watching the rain at breakfast I changed into capris and a t-shirt. Big mistake, the rain soon cleared up and the sun came out in full force! Who knew Scotland could be so hot!


My pen was next to Michele's, so we got the shuttle bus together at 10:30 and waited anxiously for Nicole to turn up, texting Kate to find out how she got on. We had examined the maps carefully the night before and it showed a fuel station just after the pens, so I left my fuel at home - one less thing to carry. Unfortunately the fuel station was just in front of the handover point so I had to grab one of the Lucozade bottles meant for the returning runners to keep me going; mistake number two. 


I took my time in transition, which may have cost the team precious seconds as there wasn't a sensor mat as I left the pen as promised in the race details. There should have been a mat going in to stop the clock and going out to start it again :-(. Oh well! 


The run felt a lot harder in the heat, but we had a lot of good support along the way. Well, except for that bit that went through what must have been a farm. The smell in the heat was potent to say the least... Every water station I came to was a blessing and I drank a whole bottle of water from each station along the way, which is a lot for me and indicative of the temperature! As I hit my 8 miles and returned to the next pen I went past local residents on their front lawns with hoses. Would have been great along the course but when I knew I had only seconds till the finish all I was thinking is I'm gonna be walking around dripping wet! I've never been so glad to see a finish line in my life albeit a partial finish line! The heat was murderous and unexpected and I ended up with a great tan line outlining my Garmin!


I must admit it did feel strange having to wait around for someone else to collect my medal; I'm used to be rewarded as soon as I finish running! Running a relay is completely different, the anxiousness you feel for your team members; I found it really hard trying to guess where everyone was and who they were doing, but it was great to feel I had achieve something with the help of three others! Just in case you were wondering here's a pic of the team!