Well after not the best nights sleep, I dug into my pot of yoghurt and muesli (not GF but beggars cant be choosers) and a banana. All washed down with a spanking cup of tea we left the hotel and headed towards Kings Cross St Pancras following the peeps in lycra making their way to the tube. We literally squished ourselves on to the train to Knightsbridge – soooo many peoples going to Hyde Park. After peeling ourselves out of the train and finding the main stage and the loos I lined up and was duely scarred by the grotty nature of the non flushing loos. I gave husband a kiss and my hoodie and sent him on his way. I may have participated in the group warm up, cannot guarantee my level of coordination!
I headed towards the green ramp, which matched my race number. Got in line and waited to be told to go – ignored all the men jumping the barriers to pee on the building opposite and tried to avoid sweaty armpits – not that I could see anything anyway as I was surrounded by rather large men. At which point I looked down and looked at other peeps numbers and realised that my shade of green was not the same as theirs, it was yellow (but looked like green to me) and I was in the wrong place – Eeeek! Too late to move now was stuck surrounded by large and fast wildebeesties and had to go with the flow.
Luckily I appeared not to be the only person who was in the wrong place but who was setting a good place so I followed her. After about a mile she slowed down so I side stepped and continued on my search for someone elses feet to follow. Enter perky runner number two – very perky and strident with her bun and all matching kit – she was running a bit faster than number 1. So I picked up my pace and latched on for dear life as I ran past Big ben towards the London Eye then down towards Temple. Tbh it got a bit hard around here and HOT!! I headed over towards the water station and drenched myself promptly losing Ms Perky *sad face* everyone else was going a bit faster than me at this point (heading back towards Green Park as I looked down at my Garmin to realise I had just done 10km just shy of an hour FTW!!! Beyond what I thought I could do – was well chuffed – it was also about that point I went hmmm that would be great if it was a 10km race Buttercup – but it’s not there’s another 11 km to go!!
Running through Green Park was a bit hard it was hot and I thought I had blown it by going too fast over the first 10km. I then found someone else to run behind except she kept on stopping to walk, so we played a bit of cat and mouse me running ahead while she walked and her catching up after a while. Heading back into Hyde Park (at which point I was like Yayayay – am not going to be cleared off the course when they reopen the roads!!) and people were screaming support but I found it a bit off putting tbh and it continued to be a bit hard work. But then I saw the pace maker run past me with his flag saying 2:00hrs bouncing behind him. 2 hrs you say says my tired brain well if I follow him for a while it cant be all that bad so I picked up the pace – apparently my legs were just being lazy. I followed Mr 2 hrs until about 15k (in my head around 10k I had told myself that I wasn’t allowed to walk until at least 15k and even then maybe not at all) when I was running running running and then all of a sudden I wasn’t I wasn’t I was walking going WTF – freaking subconscious taking me literally!! I walked for about 100 metres then started running again at which point Lady runner no 1 passed me and I went – err not having that so I caught up to her and followed her feet.
Except she would walk every now and again and I tapped her on the small of the back – saying no chickie you cant stop Im following your feet come on! She picked her pace up for a while and I fell in behind following – but she kept on wanting to walk and I was like we’re only about 5km away now keep going! If you need to follow me it’s all good! We continued on in a cat mouse type fashion until she gave up and just walked as she said her knee was hurting too much. At which point I had to say goodbye saying I have to RUN!! And I ran!! I saw the 2:10 pace maker go past and tried my best to keep up with him but that wasn’t happening for too long. By this point I was tired by my legs were turning over and I was doing okay until I realised at somepoint I had dropped my last gel from my belt *very sad face*
Fck it no time to pack a tanty – I pulled up my big girl undies and kept on going eww and my legs were still going until about 20km where it started to get hard not just mentally hard my thighs were starting to burn – I was thinking not far now just get there woman!! I continued on past pretty trees and very large golden buildings but I tbh paid them very little attention as I was approaching ‘the Blerch’ (google blerch and oatmeal) where I started to slow down cause everything hurt. At 21k (as told by my Garmin) I was like well where’s the finish line then??? Apparently almost another km away – which made my mental toughness cry on the inside just a little bit. And I started to run walk as I thought I had very little left (I wasn’t the only one as there were quite a few people weaving, and either being helped to sit down or lying down on the ground – it was a bit brutal). Then I saw the 800m marker and went well TFG for that!! I started running again not fast but I wasn’t walking and when I got to the 400m marker I said fck it who really wants to walk home any ways?? And I ran as hard as I could to the finish line overtaking a few peeps, smiling at the nice camera guy as I went past.
I grabbed a banana, a water and my medal and I was done. As was everyone else including another poor soul who had collapsed half way down the finish shoot. It was a slow walk to that patch of ground under a nice oak tree where I had a little lie down – just for a bit. So I did it PB’s all round 5km 27mins, 10km 59.55mins (and I will take that 5 seconds thank you very much) and a much slower rest of the run but I the official time was 2:28:30 but since it was longer than expected Im going by what my garmin said which was about 2:20ish. Go me!!
And as far as I’m concerned Pret your Tuna nicoise salad and Miso soup were the shiz as afters.
The ButterCup Project 