The Race

So Race day today dawned bright and sunny, I jumped out of bed to throw on my running togs and whizz off for a quick warmup run before getting a lift to the race start.

WHO AM I KIDDING!?

I ACTUALLY woke up to utter torrential rain, and the path outside my flat had turned into a river. This was difficult to see because a) it was raining so hard and b) I hadn't put my glasses on yet because the rain sounding depressing. I could however HEAR the river flowing down the hill - and therefore didn't in fact want to get out of bed at all, nor go run 5k. In fact I'm pretty sure if it wasn't for the fact I was being picked up and Grandad was running with me, I think I probably would have copped out and just gone to choir instead.

Have to admit though that by the time I actually left home it had reduced to drizzle, which was pretty consistent right through the race and into the afternoon - as I sit here writing it't got a lot heavier again, but bucketing would be an exaggeration.  Light drizzle was of course quite nice for running in - had to clean my glasses off once or twice (wish that was my excuse for walking) but otherwise coped OK.

According to my Garmin stats, I was reasonably consistent around the 10 min/mile pace - although possibly set off a bit fast for the first km (my excuse was that it's downhill) and I did manage my sprint finish to the surprise of both my parents: my mother was trying to take a photo at the time I shot off, where she did catch Grandad smiling in amusement ... all that can be seen of me is the heel of my left foot and my reflection in the plate glass window behind me ... I REALLY didn't want to finish last and managed to overtake 3 people in the final 100m.

More importantly I definitely beat my time from the parkrun last week by nearly a minute according to my Garmin (just have to wait and see what the official result it). I am definitely realising the importance of getting my legs into gear by jogging a little at the beginning of my run. And I also ran much more of this one than I did the parkrun last week ... so roll on next week's parkrun to see if I can improve again!

Can't be bothered working out the stats from the garmin ... so here's the link to my Garmin ones.

Scottish Gas 5k by sparesoprano at Garmin Connect

UPDATE: Official result is 36:49 although I'm a little dubious given that Grandad and I got EXACTLY the same time - and he was definitely a couple of seconds behind me out of sheer surprise!