(Long post warning)
One year ago I completed my first parkrun. It was the first for me and for my location, and I only got the courage to go and run in public thanks to the wonderful support in some of the healthunlock forums. After that great experience and reading other posts here, and obviously still with the high of having completed 5k outside for the first time in my life, I decided to register for a full marathon in one year's time.
I originally registered for the Cardiff HM, I'm Spanish and I thought I could use the running experiences to also visit places in the UK I haven't had a chance to visit yet. It also looked flat-ish, which was a high-priority requirement at the time. With all that's been going on, the original marathon was canceled, so I looked for alternatives. My first alternative was the Gatwick HM, which was originally planned for May but moved to September. But that was canceled too closer to the second date. I then found the Boston Marathon at the beginning of September (they also had a half), they did an amazing job making it Covid-safe, but it was canceled a couple of weeks before the race. I was going to do a 10k run in Folkestone organised by Nice Works, and it looked like it was going ahead, and they were doing a half marathon at the end of the month, so I registered for that one and hoped it would go ahead... At this point, you might be thinking why not doing a virtual one??? Well, I'm not sure I can explain, it was a personal challenge to complete one without walking, and an important part for me was the social part (I'm an extremely introverted person, so the social part adds to the challenge)
Anyway, going forward to last week and new restrictions are announced, I started worrying it could be canceled. As I mentioned above, I did a race at the beginning of September with the same organisers and I felt really safe. Race instructions were emailed in advance, the start was in waves, I never had anyone running close to me, aid and water stations were clean and with sanitiser... The email with the instructions arrived Thursday evening, it was going ahead!
I'm getting there, don't worry 
Finally Sunday was there, I was assigned the 8:15 wave (wave 5 - 12 people per wave). I woke up and the weather was awful, it was cold, rainy, windy... I got several layers, including gloves, and my hydration vest (it's an extra layer!!), and got to the race start around 7:55. I managed to see the start of the first wave, walk around a bit as it was too cold to stand at the start area and came back for my start. It was time for our wave, a nice lady called out our names while someone else checked our temperature and we were assigned a position on the start line (2 metres apart), were given some final instructions and... go! I used the first km to warm up (kind of, I never took my gloves off), the race starts above the coastal path, and after the first km there was a steep downhill (probably the most difficult part, it was too steep, even if it was my fastest km, I was being very careful to avoid slipping somewhere). Once you get to the coastal path, it's a very flat race, you go all the way until you have done a bit less than 11 km and then turn back, same route except the last km.
In the race webpage, it said headphones were not allowed. The race instructions said you could use them. I decided to go for the race experience and didn't take them with me, so this was the longest "naked" run I've ever done. The flat path along the coast was very long, the view would have been great if it hadn't been so cloudy, and the wind didn't help the run, although I think it helped so I wouldn't focus on how much was left As I was wearing so many layers, I had started my garmin but I couldn't check how much longer or how I was doing in terms of time, so I decided to just focus on the fact that I was X miles away of completing my personal challenge.
With two miles to go, a nice marshal encouraged me saying "you are almost there, the worst has passed" but that's when I realised, that steep downhill at the start was coming, and now it was uphill!! From the bottom, you cannot see the end of it, so I took it one lampost at a time. I tried to keep my cadence but reduce my stride, at some point, it would have been faster to walk, but I'm stubborn and my challenge was to finish without walking so slowly I made it to the top, telling myself that after that it would just be a sprint to the end. Now the sprint to the end was actually a bit longer than a sprint and it required passing the finish line, running 300 metres more and then coming back to the finish line to actually finish. Water bottle and go home, the organisers were really nice but also discourage people from staying around and creating groups. I went straight to the shower, took me a bit to recover a human temperature, my clothes were incredibly heavy, but I was starving so went for an early lunch, then spent the afternoon in the couch
Thanks for reading all that, I'm still recovering but I had promised a full report
Toronto Half Marathon done!
Spring 2020 Half Marathon Group 😄 Pacing!
Southend Half Marathon
First half marathon 
First half marathon completed 