So. This was meant to be a race on the way to my “come back race” which was planned for December this year. You might notice the use of past tense there…after my disastrous day on Sunday I have shelved said come back plans!

I hadn’t done much training for one reason and another, therefore I knew it was going to be hard. I had a plan. I tried to stick to it - and yet still I fell out the back door and the wheels fell off! My average pace was shockingly slow and I almost did a personal worst (PW) over the distance. It was vile. I hit 5.45 miles on Riverside Drive and wanted to stop - of course I didn’t as I was already over half way and my stubborn nature wouldn’t allow such a thing! On Riverside Drive, poor Jane (who had left me behind some time previously and with whom I ran the first 7 miles of my first ever 10 mile race a couple of years back) came a cropper and met the pavement. Poor bleeding woman. Elbow, hands, skinned knees…she still beat me though :) I crossed the line in 1:53:53 by my watch (which I will use as the race isn’t chip timed). Disaster. After the race was also a disaster and I felt so rough. In fact, it was only really by yesterday evening that I felt better. Horrid. Sent me back to when I first started running races. I also, I am ashamed to say, cried after I crossed the line as I was so upset with myself.

Enough of the bad. What’s the good to be gleaned from this then? Well, it’s good I got around 10 miles without stopping, my longest run since the Barbados Half Marathon in December 2008. It’s also good that my legs were fine in the days following. The other good thing is that it seems to have scared me a little into training…and not planning on doing races when I am not ready. The other good thing was that after the race, after my tears, a Serpentine lady came up to David and I and asked if we were the couple who were in Runner’s World a couple of years back. We said that yes we were and she told me that it was because of us and reading about parkrun that she started running. She thanked us for spurring her on. So that’s pretty awesome.

Onwards and upwards, right?