Today was the Kew Gardens 10km which is part of the Richmond Running Festival. It was the third time the event has been run (pun intended) and the second time my sister and I were back to run the race.
Last year we had both entered and raised money for Alzheimer's Society as our mother was suffering from the illness. We both got PBs at the race and we raised a lot of money for the charity. It was a good day.
Sadly since that day we have lost our Mum but we wanted to return to again run the race and raise money for the charity so that other families can benefit from the research that Alzheimer's Society do on a daily basis. Perhaps we could also break those PBs again despite us being one year older?
So we carbed up the night before on bread and pasta, set up our donation page and got a fairly early night as the alarm was set for 6:15am.
Crack of dawn arrived. Sounds filthy doesn't it? That thought aside, the morning actually went like so. Alarm went off. Shower. Dressed. Cooked porridge on the stove (no microwave cheating for me.) Porridge eaten. Banana 1 eaten. Banana 2 eaten. 1 glass of water drunk. Time to leave the house.
We made the short walk from my place across the river to Kew Gardens. It was a lovely sunny morning with a slightly chilly bite in the air due to the early hour. Pretty sure that at the exact same time some hard core party people were also feeling the chill on the night bus home. Or maybe not depending how thick their alcohol blanket was.
We landed in the gardens. A beautiful place and one of mine and my sister's favourite London havens. We dropped our bags off, made a quick toilet stop and soon were at the start gathering area. We had received our race numbers last weekend along with the joining instructions. It appeared that Natalie was in start wave 1 and I was in start wave 2. Without wanting to sound like an athletic version of Mariah Carey throwing a strop I couldn't help but wonder why I was placed in the second wave? Natalie had put an estimated finish time of 70 minutes and I had put 36 minutes. How did that happen?! However; without the need of a Mariah moment we received an email from the race organisers saying there had been an issue with their system and many people had been sent the wrong start wave and in fact our wave start positions were reversed. Maybe a PB was possible then for me?
Quick warm up done and we were then on the start line. Amongst us was a 2012 Olympian and two female GB athletes freshly back from the World Championships in Beijing, Ten second count down and we were off. Kew Gardens is a lovely place to run, especially when it was as empty as it was at 8:30am. It is very flat so it was easy to get into my pace. A slight reality check though when the two GB World Championship athletes sauntered past me chatting to each other as what looked like lightning speed to me! Girl power to them.
That said though I felt good and the mile markers were going past in accordance with my race plan. We left Kew Gardens and were onto the riverside path heading down to Richmond. Passing Kew Gardens on the other side of the fence I spotted Natalie. Perfect timing so we could exchange waves.
The riverside path is uneven but luckily one of my usual training grounds so I knew the sides of the path to avoid. Soon enough we were at Richmond and the park where we were due to finish. Now despite it being the park we were due to finish in we still had over 1 mile to go until the end. We looped around the park and I won't lie, it was painful. The girl that had been tailing me for most of the race overtook me. I started to think I must be slowing down and that a PB would be massively out of sight. However; as we made it into the last stretch I had 50 seconds to make it a best time. I pushed on as hard as I could and crossed the line. 12th place overall. 9th place out of all the men. 1st place out of my age category (35-39 year old males.) My time was 36 minutes 25 seconds. 2 seconds slower than last year so not quite a PB. I wasn't actually gutted. I was pleased because:
1) I am actually 1 year older.
2) It is my best performance over 10km this year.
Natalie also crossed the line in a massive PB of 1h 4m 06s which was brilliant!
So; Kew Gardens is still a favourite race of mine and one I would like to keep as a constant in my annual race calendar.
The only thing missing were my Mum and Dad from the finish line. I know they would have been there to cheer us on and no doubt have treated us to lunch afterwards. It makes me sad that we cannot do that as a family but having Steven, Iain and Jessica at the finish line to jump around (that was Jessica) and take us for coffee (that was Steven and Iain) certainly still made it a special family day.
Thanks to all that donated to our page....there is still time if you want to do it now :-)
https://www.justgiving.com/Natalie-Edwards15/?utm_source=Facebook&utm_medium=fundraisingpage&utm_content=Natalie-Edwards15&utm_campaign=pfp-share-mobile
Oh what a beautiful morning....walking to the start:
Squinting in the sun. Pre race shot:
Post race bling:
Post race shots:
Jessica loving the finish line tunes. She jumps like no other:
