Half Mary Re-Cap!

Good afternoon!! YAAAYY I did my first ever half marathon today! And I’m pleased to say it went really really well I actually got a personal best time – I did (according to my logs ) 13miles (just under) on the 16th January, in 1hr 52 – Today, I did (just over) 13miles in -

1hour 43mins!

I’m so thrilled Here are my Garby stats:

• Lap 1 – 8.09
• Lap 2 – 7.57
• Lap 3 – 7.53
• Lap 4 – 7.48
• Lap 5 – 7.50
• Lap 6 – 7.54
• Lap 7 – 7.46
• Lap 8 – 7.50
• Lap 9 – 7.51
• Lap 10 – 7.50
• Lap 11 – 7.54
• Lap 12 – 7.56
• Lap 13 – 7.55
• Last 250m – 1.09

I’m really chuffed with that; my first mile was slower due to the big crowds of people at the start (I think there was over 1000 doing it), so it was hard to find my place and so on. But after everyone spread out, I got in a rhythm

Anyway, now the official times are out of the way, I’ll do a proper day re-cap!

I got up at 7.28am and my eyes were sooo tiirreedd! I shouldn’t have stayed up reading til midnight lesson learned! Before we left at 8.30, I had a tbsp wheatgerm, a tbsp of grapenuts (seriously, I love them so much!) and a cute little kiwi – skin and all;

On the way, I ate my real breakfast – 2 pieces wholemeal bread, half with my aunt’s crab apple jam and banana, the other half with PB and banana:

I can’t believe how tasty PB and banana sandwiches are…I think I may have to make them a more regular occurance, cos OH MY GOSH was that good!! I finished it about 1hr and 20mins before the start of the race.

We then got slightly lost getting to the place (fabby for stress levels LOL! But I kept my calm…), but since we left 2hrs free for a 1hr journey, we still got there in plenty of time. Turns out we needed that time, cos the line for toilets was about 100 people long!

Then, very weirdly, as I was on my way to the start I saw my old history teacher from High School (who I used to fancy like mad, along with all the other girls…!!) – thankfully he didn’t see me! I just made a mental note to avoid all runners wearing red tops and black shorts. Ironically, that included 85% of everyone there. Ah well…(in case you were wondering, he finished about 5mins before I did – I never knew he was a runner in High School!)

When I got to the start, I had my iPod all plugged in and ready to go, then this little grotty short man came up to me and told me I’d be eliminated if I wore it; ‘it says in big black print at the bottom of the page’ (I read said-page on the way home – nothing on iPods, nasty man!), then stormed off! I asked an official and was told it was ‘frowned upon’ but not illegal. Besides, plenty of other runners had them on (including a mega cute man, who I’m proud to say I overtook about mile 6 :p).

Anyways, so I hung out at the startline for 10mins, and FROZE MY BUTT OFF – It was cold!! You can probably sense my coldness here:

THEN WE WERE OFF!!

It’s hard to tell from the photos, but about 75-80% of people there were from running clubs. And throughout the whole thing, I saw just TWO people walk! Everyone was so fit and awesome, it was inspiring During the race, I got my mum to snap some photos of me whenever she saw me:

Can you spot me!?

There I am! The glowing jogging bottoms really make me stand out (I NEED to get some new running gear..)

 The first four miles flew past – I felt strong and the whole novelty factor hadn’t worn off Then from about mile 6 onwards, I kept getting a really tight chest for about 30 seconds in each mile. It was really weird, it’s like an asthma type feeling – I ONLY get it if I run later in the day! It was very frustrating cos it made it hard to breath; but I knew I wasn’t tired, cos as soon as the feeling passed, I felt fab again. So miles 10-13 were a bit ‘blah’…see if you can spot me [again] at mile 11!

The course in general was really good – not exactly wild with landmarks, but there were only two steep hills (over bridges) and a couple of lonnnng hills that you hardly felt cos they went up so…uhh, what’s the word..unsteeply!? They also had 3 water stops along the way, so I gulped-and-ran at each one

Very soon, the end was nigh!

I actually ‘sprinted’ the last tiny bit, cos I had a goal in my head (which I set on the last mile) to finish in 1hr43. But I didn’t have much sprint power left in me, so it wasn’t that fast! But anyway, here’s me just after I finished:

And with my medal! (Thankfully, it was a lot better than the one I got my 10k – a bottlecap on a ribbon!)

I now have a grand total of TWO running medals – I can’t wait to add to the collection!!

After I’ve finished, we walked back to the Village Hall (where it all began), as I’d heard they had really nice cakes there – and they did! This photo only shows about a 1/4 of the amount of cakes they had (all home made):

My mum and I shared this slice of coffee cake:

It was really tasty – coffee cake is one of my favourites We also bought 3 more slices of chocolate cake, which my mum, step-dad and sister polished off quickly enough

I’ve read so many books on nutrition and running, so I knew that, despite not being hungry (yes, my breakfast did hold me over! I had no need to worry after all ), it was verrry important to eat a proper lunch to re-fuel. Sooo I had the best sandwich ever – smoked salmon, 2 pieces wholemeal bread, Flora and a heck of a lot of spinach!

The picture is decieving, but there was ALOT of salmon in there:

(Excuse the shaky pic – my mum was driving so I couldn’t keep everything still :s) I’d been dying to use some of this smoked salmon – my gran got me A WHOLE KG of it for christmas, so it’s been sitting in the freezer for ages waiting for a good opportunity

When I got home, I had a giant chocolate button off one of the pieces of cake, and a hot chocolate It warmed me up nicely

And now, I have the wonderful task of mucking out the horses….so I better go! I hope this post makes sense, I feel like I’ve been typing forever, so I hope I haven’t rambled too much