Dear reader, it appears to be December and I, a bit like Sleeping Beauty (albeit a bit more snorey) appear to have slept through October and November, what happened?! The last two months have been a blur filled with husband and baby sickness (when does the baby stop catching EVERYTHING going??) then I caught a horrific bug, and suddenly whoo, it’s December guys!! Best get that ‘Christmasy’ feeling out!! You might be able to tell from the noticeable absence of posts that I haven’t had the energy to write, but I’m feeling like I’m back on Planet Earth now and I thought a little update on how my Half Marathon went, was long overdue.

Rewind to September and on race day I was up well before the baby, it was a cold but bright morning, I had a feeling it was going to be a good day. After a bit of faffing about what to wear (shorts or leggings, shorts or leggings) I slow jogged to the train station where I met one of my hockey girls Liz, who was doing the race as well. Even before 8am the tube was heaving with fellow racers and Hyde Park was buzzing. We got there with plenty of time to spare but of course, five thousand others also want that pre race wee so our time was eaten up queuing for forty minutes to use the toilets!! This was not a good start. Trying to warm up in a queue is not easy, doing a casual leg lunge and toe touch always looks a bit funny. After much waiting, some more lunging and then dropping bags off I was ready to go. All the while, loud speakers were urging everyone to the start line as it was time to go, in fact it was about ten minutes past time to go. You have to estimate a time when you sign up for the race, then you’re put into a colour zone based on that time, I was in the purple zone (I think) hoping I could run in two hours twenty. Check out my game face below and the sea of heads.

I’m not sure what happened on the day, but everything clicked into place, I felt good. It was a beautiful day, chilly but sunny and despite my brief warm up I felt ready to go, possibly the huge amount of adrenalin I had buzzing around my body helped. The atmosphere was brilliant, with it being London and so central there were lots of people watching, clapping and cheering which helps so much, even if they’re not cheering for you, you feel like they are! I had been worried that I hadn’t done enough training, but I had obviously been doing enough little runs to see me through and I hadn’t banked on the vibe of the day getting me round. You run past some iconic sites like Buckingham Palace, the Horse Guards Parade, Downing Street, up the Strand and you run through Admiralty Arch. I couldn’t stop looking around at the start as I took it all in, I remember Big Ben chiming 10am and feeling such a high. I probably looked like a loon, running with a huge grin on my face.

Pelvis pain and knee pain kicked in around mile eight but seeing my husband and friends spurred me on. Despite the pain, as I neared the finish line I found a surge of energy from somewhere and ‘sprinted’ (which translates as ‘fast trotted’) to the finish line, glimpsing my husband and friends again but not daring to stop as I feared my legs might not have got the message and they might have carried on as my body tried to pause. The feeling as I crossed the finish line was pretty elating, I felt like I had really achieved something. Not being able to find my husband and friends for the next 30 minutes killed the feeling slightly but we managed to re-group eventually. All in all, It was an amazing day for me. I know it sounds cheesy but I honestly felt like the guy I was running the race for, Carl, was with me that day, something got me round that course, I have never felt more positive and happy when doing exercise! And another great thing was that I managed to raise £575 for Macmillan, so high fives all round everyone 🙂