Twenty miles and counting

Today was a GREAT day! All my fears were unfounded.  The sun shone, the wind dropped and I got a towel.  Yes, sounds a bit bizarre but they gave away towels at the end of the race.  I was a bit confused when this man thrust it at me, I thought he was thinking I looked like I needed a good wipe down.  Man I was salty! Like a big salted pistachio nut.  It's incredible how much salt a person can produce.  Anyhow, I digress, let me tell you about the race.

As you know, it was a 20 mile race.  Called the East Hull 20.  In East Hull.  There were four of us from the club running it and two of them are doing marathons too. The race started at 10am and off we all piled down the road.  I was trying to keep very slow as those first few miles are the decider for how my races go and I've plenty of examples of how not to do it. So the result was I was at the back just in front of the sweeper vehicle.  It's a bit disconcerting to have a rumbling transit van crawling along behind you.  It begs the question 'Will it stay behind me all the way?  If I have to nip off to the toilet will it wait for me and then start following me again?'  Then I caught up with another lady and ran with her. Despite being at the back I noticed that my pace was already too fast so that was a worry but any slower and I would have been run over by the sweeper vehicle.  Imagine the headlines?  Then I caught up with another lady and chatted with her, she is doing the London marathon. It certainly helps to have some company on these long runs, especially when you are towards the back so that everyone is strung out and sometimes you are running completely alone although you know that there are hundreds of runners in front of you somewhere. All the marshals were so nice and encouraging and then there were bike marshals whizzing up and down checking that everyone was OK and St John's Ambulance vans sneaking up on you and then trundling past.  Very busy. All the time I was simply trotting along just trying not to think too much about it all.  The weather was beautiful and not so hot as to be unbearable.

The scenery was gorgeous and most of the race I could enjoy it until the last few miles in which case all I could do was try to propel myself in a Norman Wisdom kind-of-a-way by punching one arm out with the elbow foremost and dragging the rest of my body to follow. I put that down to fatigue.  After a while I realised that this was no way to go on and  I was seriously in danger of doing my back in and, more importantly, being captured on camera.  So I straightened up and scoffed another Shot Blok and decided to get through mile by mile. I have to say the last 4 miles were probably pretty indicative of what the last six miles of the marathon will feel like.  All you can do is just keep going somehow.  I'm not sure how I did it and once I got to 18 miles it was all new territory for me because that has been my longest run so far.  As it turned out it spurred me on because by that point 2 miles seemed far too short to give up and yet of course it was torturous going. All the while I kept catching up with people and then passing them so that even though I started at the back I passed 16 people before I finished. All in all a very satisfying day.

I went for a short swim when I got home. Running practically nonstop for nearly three and three quarter hours has somewhat of a battering effect on the legs and my feet felt completely flattened.  Let's hope it helps and I won't be lurching around tomorrow like the Hunchback of Notre Dame.

So very long runs all done now.  Looking forward to the taper.