I’ve had a rotten cold which I’ve been struggling to shake, which meant switching from the 10 miles to the 10k run. It’s been a busy week still feeling not quite right. The plan was to do parkrun yesterday and then keep going for 5k. I hadn’t counted on it being so sunny and finishing reallh not feeling like running any more. Maybe there’d be an opportunity today? After leaving the house at 9am and getting back around 8.15pm, it wasn’t looking likely. But was I going to miss out on my medal? Absolutely not. So it was time to put my big girl (running) pants on and get out the door. No time to eat…apart from a pile of custard creams. Rain wasn’t forecast but I grabbed my trusty phone protection cover (aka a sandwich bag) and headed out.
It seemed to be getting dark earlier than expected. It turned out that was because a monsoon style downpour was about to start. Five minutes in, I was absolutely drenched. It crossed my mind that running conditions weren’t exactly ideal, but when are they ever? Plus, once you’re really wet you can’t get much wetter so I thought I might as well carry on,
I don’t think I’ve done many long runs at this time of day, except in the height of summer and those runs weren’t longer than 5k A field of cows (pictured on a sunnier day!) looked at me as if I was mad to be out. They were probably right. I fell into a comfortable, just-keep-going pace which wasn’t too much like hard work. Lots of hills. Wind and rain in my face. Epic puddles. It was a treat to have virtually no traffic though and I hardly stopped for the whole run duration which was a novelty. Once the rain stopped, there were hundreds of bunnies in the fields.
There was nothing particularly notable about the run except that it happened! It wasn’t fast. It wasn’t too tough, or super easy. Just a long run where I felt like an absolute superhero for being out in such vile weather at a stupid time of day. That most likely wouldn’t have happened without the motivation to get my HU10 medal so a massive thank to linda9389 Irishprincess and Beachcomber66 for doing such a fantastic time organising. I finished in exactly 1hr9minutes and I couldn’t care less about the time. It’s going to take a while for my massive smile to fade!
I can’t wait for the next HU event!! Now to order my medal…🥇