We arrived in the New Forest a little later than planned, and the queue for the car park was long and slow. So when UpTheStanley finally got directed to his parking area, I jumped out of the car and headed off to pick up our bibs and T-shirts. Then it was straight to the loo queues. As I was chatting to a lady next to me, I heard my name being called, and saw Mudita11 was a few places behind me. So we had a quick hello, before I disappeared into the building.
We both fixed our bibs on our shirts, dropped our bags under a tree, and then headed to the race start. UTS went looking for his 55 min pacemaker and I found a place in the 1hour + zone. I completed my warm up exercises in the queue, while organisers were still asking runners to go to the start.
As it happened, the start was delayed to allow for late arrivals and I didn’t cross the start line until 9:07. I started the NRC 10k Race guided run, and my watch, and ran. The route goes through Exbury village and along country lanes to the coast road with beautiful views of the Isle of Wight. Like Mudita, I waved at aliboo70 . The cloudy cool day forecast didn’t quite happen; it was bright sunshine and hot, although not as bad as last year’s 25°C. This year’s weather hadn’t given us chance to get used to running in the sun again, and thankfully I had put sun tan lotion on. Local residents were cheering us on at their garden gates and one had a sprinkler going, which was lovely.
The first 5k was slightly downhill and I was doing well. The trees were affecting the GPS though so I couldn’t trust the data on my watch. At around 4k I saw UTS coming in the opposite direction and called out to him, and about 600m later Mudita followed and we waved. What goes down must go up, so after the turning point I headed on an upward route towards the welcomed water station.
There was more evidence of run/walking now, and with the sun being higher, less shadows to hide under. In my 7th km I ran alongside another lady and we were chatting about how hot it was last year and we both agreed that it would be great to beat that finish time today. Famous last words! I was running in the middle of the road and hadn’t noticed that the road surface had cracked and was on two different levels. I then twisted my left ankle and was hopping on my right foot in pain. I told her to carry on as I didn’t want her to feel she had to stop. I gingerly walked slowly up the hill, thinking I was going to have to seek assistance at the next marshal . But as time moved on I felt that it wasn’t as bad and think I had walked it back to normal. I didn’t want a DNF , and although I knew any chance of a PB was gone I attempted to jog slowly. I then ran/walked the rest of the course, running down slopes and walking in the sun uphill. I hadn’t heard from Coach Bennett for ages and when I got my phone out he started talking about the 8th km, even though I was well beyond that. He was talking about how you should forget the distance on your watch because GPS can be flukey and you should race to the actual line. At this point I had entered the Gardens and could hear the announcements over the tannoy. Those waiting for their friends and relatives cheered everyone on. So I stepped into a run again, my ankle didn’t hurt at all now, so I stepped it up again as UTS came into vision. There were a few people ahead of me so I stepped it up some more and managed to overtake them with a sprint finish .
So I had a great first 5k, a not so good second half, then a triumphant finish.
I was totally whacked and grateful for Jaffa cakes, water, banana and medal. A text came through- UTS 54:34 and me 1:17:00. I did beat last year’s 1:21:04. But I know that I can do so much better. We might have to enter again next year 😂
Unfortunately, we didn’t get to catch up with Mudita but I’m sure we’ll see her soon.
A picnic in the gardens followed then I lay in the shade of a tree for a while. The very bright neon orange T-shirt and medal depicts azaleas as Exbury Gardens holds the national collection, and although the season is over, I did manage to find one in flower.
Warning! Long post - Hampton Court Palace Half Marathon