It is pissing down today. All the excitement that was building up inside me yesterday had done one this morning. I hate running in the rain even more than I hate running. My dear friend Anna offered to write me a sick-note yesterday when we saw the weather forecast but I thought that was probably taking the piss out of all the people that had sponsored me. My husband and bezzies gamely offered to come and support me this morning but I decided that there was no point at all in any more of us getting cold, wet and miserable than was completely necessary. I had a moment with a girl in the queue for the bogs before we started when we were trying to work out which was the more attractive option: doing the race in the pissing rain or hiding in the stinky portaloos for an hour instead? It was close.
Much of the course is through fields so it was a mud bath. For the first kilometre or so I was running around the puddles doing the nearest thing to ballet that I have ever achieved I reckon. This was until I realised that I was probably doubling the distance that I was running by doing this so decided soggy feet and a muddy arse was doable for an hour or so. The first three kilometres were a dream. I was a dog with two dicks wondering why the hell I had been so worried about this and was already signing up in my head for the St. Albans Half Marathon next year. Then came the 4 - 5 km hill of death. I had no idea where I was as I had been too scared to look at the route map previously but I must say that I had never before realised that Harpenden was such a mountainous region!
It took a couple of km after that to get my equilibrium back but I think once you are halfway you realise that you probably are going to actually make it. One of Stu's bezzies, Parky, once said to me that your body can do anything and it is just your mind that stops you. I kept telling my mind this throughout and it seemed to work.
The crowds rocked up from about 6km and that improved things greatly. I do sometimes loathe running but my love of being stared at and clapped fully outweighs this so I was beaming away at people who were absolutely nothing to do with me.
I tried to think of the km milestones like labour. In labour you are striving for the magic 10cms dilation and here I was striving to finish at 10K. Each km that you pass you know that the pain is a little bit closer to ending, plus you don't have a newborn to deal with at the end of it! I missed the sign for 7km and that nearly finished me off but the joy of hitting 8km instead was indescribable.
Job done. No more sober Saturday nights for me
What I don't understand is why, when I got out of the bath just now, my tummy is still flibbedy-flobbedy. Is Mother Nature not aware of what I have endured? I should be a lean, muscular being now without an inch of flab. Life just isn't fair sometimes.
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