Run > Race

This was the worst and one of the most frustrating races of my life. For the past 3 months, all my training had been aimed at this race and until 2 weeks before, training had been going really well. In the past 2 weeks, I had been suffering with foot pain (on top of right foot) and wasn't feeling 100% (lethargic and sore throat).

We left late, I managed to make up 20 minutes on the way, but then we hit 3 miles of solid traffic once we got to Portsmouth - stress levels raising here! I at 9.50 (race starts at 10.35) I parked on street (while queuing) about a mile from the start and we walked the rest. I decided to jog ahead of Eunice to warm up and pee, but when I headed back I couldn't find her (stress levels very high by now!) and after 10 minutes of looking I had to strip off and go into my pen (luckily I had my own entrance). The problem was that I had my old trainers and not the flats I planned to run in (which Eunice had). It was also very sunny, so I felt quite warm before we even started running.

The gun went and I got away quickly (through the start line in about 5 seconds). I quickly got settled into a pace and ran alongside some other runners (actually pushing past a few people to start with as the pace felt smooth). My arms felt quite heavy, but the legs seemed fine. We initially were running into a strong head wind along the coast, but then we headed into the city. It was around about the time I reached the first mile when I started feeling quite tired. At mile 1 my watch said 6.04 (so the first mile was about 6 dead - exactly my plan) however, the pace wasn't feeling smooth at all. I decided at that point my best bet was to try and run around 61 minutes. I quickly became a lot more tired after this point - not lactic acid or breathlessness from running too fast but just really heavy legs (my whole body was feeling lethargic). Other runners started passing me and I found myself struggling to hold onto any sort of pace. I hadn't even reached 3 miles and I already felt like I wanted to stop.

I tried to keep myself together until we got to the out-n-back dog leg section -which gave me a little boost. There was an upbeat band playing, plus I got to see the leaders come down the other side and then once I had turned, I got to see some of the thousands of runners behind me. I had already started taking water and throwing it over my body because I felt quite hot (I have no idea how some people were running with long sleeve tops!). As I approached 5 miles, I was really starting to struggle, my legs just had nothing in them. I very seriously considered pulling out at 5 miles - if I had seen Eunice I might have just done that. I didn't see Eunice (she said after that she saw me at 7 miles, but I didn't see her). I got to 5 miles in about 31.10, which still put me on PB pace (but only just) and I knew there was no way I would maintain the pace.

I got to 10k in 39.14 (the same time I ran a hard steady-state run months before doing any of my really good sessions and that I felt a lot less tired in that training run then I did today). I managed to hold it together until roughly 8 miles, but when I turned around the corner and hit the headwind, anything that was left in my legs was completely zapped out. At this point I was really struggling to keep my legs moving. This felt like the longest 2 miles of my life! I nearly walked a few times, but about a mile before the finish I saw a lady handing out jelly babies so I turned around and took some (I also managed to blag someones was bottle as he was running with it!). I practically jogged the last 2 miles (in fact I got to 15k in 60.14 so the last 1km was incredibly slow!). As I approached the finish line I just wanted to finish and it be over with, I jogged across the line in 262nd place (out of about 16000).

The nest problem was finding Eunice and Tyler. I hadn't seen them since I went for a pee before the start, so I was starting to get worried. I ended borrowing 3 different peoples phones to try and ring mine so I could get hold of her. I sent a message to my phone to say to meet me at the start. It was freezing and very very windy by now, so luckily I was able to get me warm clothes I hid in the bushes (I would have definitely gotten sick if I hadn't got them back). We eventually found each other near the start and both very tired and stressed headed back to the car.

On the plus side (after arguing about where to go for lunch) we had a nice remainder of the day in Portsmouth by going up the Spinnaker tower.