I got up and out of bed at 7am on a Sunday, in the pouring rain and some sort of wind that was sufficiently blowy enough to have been christened with a human name—Ernesto, apparently, a tropical storm, which conjures up images of Lilt and coconuts, not the steely clouds that greeted me as I stepped outside my door—and got on a train to Paisley. Running has now reached peak lunacy.
I'd planned to tape my leg to try to stop my calf muscle complaining, but completely forgot in the post 'just fifteen minutes more sleep' rush to get out of the house. Luckily I'd remembered to bring some painkillers and grabbed a banana on the way so I'd not be taking them on an empty stomach.
The starting pen in the town square—for there was just one big corral—was cheerful, buzzing chaos, with massive portaqueues everywhere, and an alarmingly enthusiastic lady on a stage unsuccessfully trying to make us do a zumba warm up. I felt kind of nervous—I wonder when you stop filling with butterflies before you set off?—but was delighted by the amount of people who had the same idea as me in my new patterned Buff, there were sundry bits of paisley tied round heads, arms, waists, babies and dogs galore.
I misjudged the start pretty badly, 10am snuck up on me and as people began to compact together I realised I was really far back, but there wasn't much I could do about it as the square was so crowded. So once over the starting line my first kilometre was spent darting about, getting penned in behind clumps of chatty charity runners, doing tiny steps and becoming very uncharitably frustrated. I'm obviously no Mo but I found myself doing a much slower pace than I'd have liked with my target time in mind. I'm a very impatient runner it turns out! The route was twisty and turny through the streets and I was up over curbs and sloshing through puddles trying to overtake without interrupting people's stride, being very British about it. 'I'm so sorry, may I squeeze past?'
Eventually I found my pace tribe, the steady, middling runners, and relaxed into my stride a bit. The men with beards that could easily be mistaken for vikings in a different outfit or time. The fit older folk whom don't even break a sweat because they are just out running for the joy of free movement. The posh looking antisocial girls with high, swooshy ponytails and headphones. I have to concede I'm probably one of them :/
It was a nice community spirited run, rounding any corner you'd find local shopkeepers handing out water from under their stripy awnings and cheering everyone on, they weren't official stops, just lovely chaps. At about 4K I took a cup of water and failed abysmally to get any in my mouth, instead splashing it right into my face and up my nose. It was a huge fail in every way, accompanied with a RURGHHH and an unladylike swear. I gave up on the idea of any future refreshment. I simply lack the coordination.
There were lots of people handing out sweets along the course too, I purposefully honed in on a green jelly baby, they're the best flavour and I'll not hear a word otherwise. Then I discovered I don't really like eating sweets when I run, they're really claggy and make my mouth taste funny.
Luckily the weather held off throughout, it was grey and muggy but Ernesto left us be. A surprising amount of people were running in jackets though. Yuck! The thought of that sweaty shower curtain material makes me shudder.
The route was not very inspiring with Ernesto's palette looming large, grey weather, grey buildings for the first half, and a green cycle path with grumpy looking stone bridges overhead for the second half—presumably an old railway line. There wasn't much to look at so I found myself pondering people's running style around me. The people that do 'wax on, wax off' with their feet. The hunchers that pull their shoulders right up to their ears. The hand wagglers. The people that run like rigid, unblinking statues. I wonder what I do.
A 'fast, flat course' said all the blurb. Brilliant I thought, I'll stick to around 5.20 pace and I'll be round in a decent enough time. Then at 9km A HILL. A flipping ninja hill. I was not expecting that. I tackled it with final kilometre gusto, then I got pins and needles in my face halfway up and presumed my heart was packing up, so slowed a little coming down the other side. Despite imminent death, I saw my average pace dropping so I sped up again as much as I could for the final half kilometre. It wasn't very fast. I'll never be a sprint finisher!
Then that was that, over the line, with a PB of 53.04, hooray! There was no funnel, just another big clump of people, decidedly sweaty ones, this time. None of whom seem to have to keep moving like I do, I'm in danger of keeling over if I stop abruptly! There I was, jogging on the spot collecting my medal. Jogging on the spot collecting my water. Jogging on the spot collecting a banana. I failed impressively to take a good medal photo, somehow cutting off the medal entirely and simultaneously making the banana look curiously suggestive in every shot.
And then instead of revelling in the glory of my first solid sub 55 10k I had a bad reaction to the ibuprofen I took for my sore calf, and was horribly sick all afternoon. Secondhand banana everywhere, oh the glamour of running. So back to the drawing board on that one 😂
New Forest 10k
York 10K
HU 10k 😎
Leamington Spa Regency 10k 
