It seems obligatory, so here's my take on yesterday's Great South Run, without the HU group photo you've already seen at least half-a-dozen times ....
I wasn't feeling at all confident this time around, as my last training run of any distance (11 days ago) saw me hitting the wall just after 11k - a proper crash from "Ooh, this is going well" to "I can't run another step" in 150 metres! Add that to a very sociable pre-race carb-loading supper with said group (not that much wine, but definitely too much garlic bread) and I walked to the race village feeling very flat, in sad need of an injection of cheekychipmunks ' excitement. Dexy5 was following along later, as she was in a later wave. So I had to keep my "why am I doing this" thoughts to myself ..... luckily they disappeared once I got to the hubbub of the start area.
Rather to my surprise, I was in the first wave this year (along with Katnap , though there was no sign of him at this stage), with my forecast time equal to the slowest pacer in the wave (1 hr 30). Even more to my surprise, despite thinking I was way too far forward in the queue for the start, I found myself within a few feet of said pacer (Luis) - and remained within a few feet of him from that point to the 15k marker, thus avoiding my usual too fast start and subsequent difficulties.
For some reason, nobody else attached themselves to us permanently, though a few others came and went. So with no-one else to talk to, we discovered early on that I'd used Luis as my pacer in the second wave two years ago, and a bit later that he is a parkrun RD just round the corner in Southampton - and as I've just started filling that role at Southsea, that conversation passed a few miles. A further boost came from a cheer from Mr and Mrs Coddfish just before the 10k point. The result was that it was pretty much an armchair ride, with a bit of a bad patch coming up to the gremlin sitting on that wall at 11k. But having beaten him off for a couple of k, all went well thereafter, and we got to 15k just over a minute ahead of schedule, meaning Luis had to slow down to hit his target, leaving me to my own devices for the last k. I managed to resist too fast too soon, and Garmin tells me I built up steadily from 5'30" to 4'40"/k - the coloured trace (see pic) shows an acceleration over the last 400m that is really quite pleasing!
And then the sun came out, and the wait with Oldgirlruns (but didn't yesterday) and Katnap to cheer on TailChaser , Sandie1961 , JonathanP , Cheeky, Dexy and David_G past the 6 mile point and then again at the finish was really rather pleasant, until everybody's legs started to seize up around the time of the photoshoot. So it was time to split up and stagger home, and for almost everybody else, to sign on for next year - but I think I'm (probably) cured now.
Oh, for the record - 1:28:19 (32 secs slower than two years ago (but my Garmin thinks I ran 90m further this time), 3486th overall, and 16th in my age group (70-74). That'll do, I think 
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Onwards and upwards!!
No Water Half Marathon
Manchester half
OGarmin gremlin?
Bouncing home 🏃♀️🏃♀️🏃♀️🏃♀️