About 5-7 years ago bank holiday weekends were usually an excuse to go on an all day bender on the Sunday because there was no school on Monday.
I am still partial to a Sunday drinking sesh but this time I was good as I had a 10km race on the Monday. The night before I was at the pub enjoying the sunshine along the river Thames but it was bottle after bottle of Bitburger the non alcoholic beer as opposed to the lovely chilled pink wine the rest of my table were indulging in.
It was only the second time I had done this race and I was looking forward to it. A scenic route through my favourite city of all time plus it started at 10am meaning no super early wake up call.
I ate my breakfast and set off on the tube reading the official race magazine that was part of my race pack. I read an interview with Jo Pavey. I think she's marvellous although she lost a few points as she disclosed in the interview that on a race morning she eats porridge with tuna for breakfast. WTF? Now it must work as she is simply amaze at running so maybe one day I will try it?
Starting on The Mall is a super setting and with the Queen's house as our backdrop the time waiting for the start gun went quickly.
The 12,000 of us set off. It was crowded but I still spotted Steven at the sideline. Sadly he didn't spot me in time :-(
I had set my goal to run the race maintaining a pace of 5m 50s per mile. The kilometeres were flying by as we weaved through central London and before long we reached the turning point at St. Paul's Cathedral. I never tire of seeing that building. I was feeling good and had kept to my target speed for most of the way. As we made our way through Trafalgar Square we passed the 9km mark and the runners who had just started going in the opposite direction to us. I did think this must be a little demotivating for them to see people almost finished. Perhaps not. Maybe they just called us names which aren't suitable to be published on this blog?!
Past Downing Street and Westminster and I only had 800m to go. Could I do a PB I thought? 400m to go. Just maybe it was possible?
200m to go I knew it wasn't.
Steven gave huge encouragement as I crossed the line just in front of Buckingham Palace.
My time was 36m 50s placing me 306th out of the 12,000 registered starters.
My PB is 36m 23s so only 27s off equaling my best and 28s off a PB. Not a bad effort.
Maybe I should have topped my porridge with tuna and I would have beaten it?!
A crowded start:
Almost there:
Finished in front of a famous house:
Some nice stats from the website post finish:
Post race refuel courtesy of the Nordic Bakery (still craving Nordic treats since Gothenburg):
