It’s Friday evening and halfway between the day of the
half marathon and the day we move out of our apartment. It’s been a hectic week
which I will tell you a little about now......
Firstly the half marathon itself....
As I hope you are aware I had been doing a lot of
training during the cold winter and into the current warm spell and was as
prepared as I could have been for the run. I was aiming for around 2 hours and
would have been exceptionally pleased to beat my training time of 1hour 55
minutes 3 seconds.
As it turned out I blasted that time away and came in at
1hour 46 minutes and 21 seconds. Needless to say I was pretty happy with that.
I wondered during the race just how I seemed to be coping so well and came up
with a theory.....
Thats me - 438th out of over 3000 runners. 34 out of 178 people in mt class (Male aged 40-44) and 364th out of all the men. 47 minutes for the 1st 10km. I want to get that down to 45 minutes!!
Basically, when
training I have been running on normal roads, pavements and paths. This means I
have to slow down or sprint to cross busy roads and pass other pedestrians.
Plus on the marathon day itself, due to the other runners and people watching
the runners, there is a hell of a lot more to keep your mind occupied, so you
tend not to think about the running action so much, therefore you are less
knackered. Thirdly, I prepared really well for the run. I ate nothing but low
fat, tasty energetic foods for the 2 days before the run and I think this
prepared my body for it.
Before the start
Off we go.
300 metres in
Seeya in a couple of hours
Finally, with the added bonus of passing nearly everyone
I came across (I started in the group that was suppose to run in 1 hour 50
minutes plus and a lot of the sub 1hour 50 runners in the faster group weren’t
that fast) it gave me a boost that didn’t make me feel tired till about mile
11. By then I had decided to slow down a little and give myself a chance to
sprint the last couple of hundred metres around the track to the finish – I know
it’s showing off, but I did really enjoy taking over everyone else and
finishing well in front of the crowd. The video of me running onto the track
and down the straight is here – I’m the in the orange!!
All in all, the entire race was a brilliant experience.
Chatting with other runners and getting cheered off the people watching made it
a lot of fun – there was even an unofficial halfway beer stop, provided by some
friendly people giving cups of chilled beer away to the runners. Perhaps not
the best idea to drink on a warm day, but it didn’t seem to slow me down much!!
After about 5 miles of the run I had started to get a
little pain in my right knee and left hip – both old injuries from my army days
which flared up during the second half of the run. I didn’t think about them
too much till a couple of hours later when I found that I could hardly walk! Luckily,
Buffy is very adept at a bit of massage, so I spent a good hour getting rubbed
down by her and felt a whole lot better afterwards. My knee got strapped up and
it took a couple of days till I could walk properly again. It was Thursday till
I went out for another run and everything is now feeling fine.
Finishing
Some of the professional photos
near the end
My first running medal!
The rest of the week has been manic. Buff was working
again with breakfast television on Monday, so we were up just after 4am and
heading out to a local lake, where we spent the next four hours with Drew from
BT Winnipeg, talking about canoeing, cooking breakfasts in plastic bags and
solar chargers among other things. It was a lovely sunny morning and was really
enjoyable apart from the sore legs!
Sunrise! 5.30am
Camera set up
Buffy showing Drew how to paddle
cooking - buffy style
Putting Drew to bed
It’s now a week before we leave the apartment and we have
spent most of this week packing things up. The bed has been moved so that we
have a spare room to sort out all the shit. The local charity shop has
benefitted from a whole pile of useful stuff that we don’t need any more. The
dining table and chairs have been given away and we are waiting for someone to
hopefully take away the couch.
Moreover, we have arranged a trailer and truck for later
in the week to take the stuff we are keeping to store in Meg’s basement. The apartment
at the moment is looking like a bombs hit it, but it is actually organised
pretty well and we are right on target to move out on Thursday – just in time
for a weekend camping trip!! It’s all exciting stuff!! Honest.
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