The day dawned all blue sky after a couple of days of rain – WIN. It was a bit blustery but all good. SuperCaz and Andy turned up on the doorstep looking a bit chilly so I took them in and phaffed around getting myself ready and then we were off – not very far as the start line was only down the street really. We got ourselves registered and realised there was no baggage drop area and apparently the locals were honest and everyone just left their bags in the school hall. We were shepherded down to the start line – it was quite chilly by this point and we had to wait a bit but all good – waved to husband and eventually they fired the gun and we were off!
SuperCaz had previously said for us to run our own races (paraphrasing :D) so I made a speedy start – really got to learn to pace myself better! I look like Im in pain in the photos I’m not I was just thinking about where my feet were going – the start line and first half km ran across the schools soggy rugby fields and the wind had picked up since leaving home. The course consisted of two laps that exited the school grounds and headed out on to Butthole lane (I kid you not that’s its name), over the M1 and through rapeseed fields and skirted the side of the Garendon farm before running through the estate, past the duckpond and up a low gradient hill, past the folly and up a steeper hill and under the M1 again and through quiet side streets up to the High School.
Much like the Royal Parks half I saw someone I could keep up with and mentally latched onto them (thank you Sarah of the purple shirt). I lost Sarah, as she kicked up a gear when her friend ran past her. I ran for a while with the herd – as we reached the school for the first time (I for some reason thought it was one lap round :p) I heard the MC boom over the speakers “Well done Laydees only one more lap to go” WTF?!! Arrrghh Suckitup Buttercup – get over it and get around!! By this time the wind had picked up a lot and the tape outlining the course across the fields sounded like it was going to take off and the ground had got a lot more slippery. Running through the fields I could hear really loud footsteps behind me and really heavy breathing – thinking to myself it’s a race not midnight on some dodgey back street of Loughborough :p hope they’re okay, as this guy who was running bent over passed me – WTF??
Looked at my Garmin which said 46 mins for 8ish ks and I went hmm I can do that (I wanted to do better than my time in the Royal Parks half) so I put my foot on the gas a little bit more and then I realised that there was the big hill of the course up ahead standing between me and a PB. May have said naughty words in my head and decided to try a bit harder and passed a few people on the way up the hill. I surprised myself with the power I had in my legs at this point and didn’t slow down. I wasn’t looking at my Garmin when it went past the 10K mark and I thought I had taken 60ish mins to do it in and thought Im okay with that.
It was at this point I caught up to the lady in pink (who had previously overtaken) and passed her. I hit the top of the hill and just let myself run fast downhill, and then running under the M1 overpass and heard footsteps behind me – it was the lady in pink who wasn’t so keen on me passing her and had kicked up a gear. Fair snuff – I am running my own race Mrs go hard as she passed me again and ran off about 100metres or so ahead of me. As we hit the side streets again I, inappropriately, thought feck it! And ran to catch her – it was mostly all uphill gradient to the high school – I caught her as we entered the school grounds. Unfortunately the ground by this point was rather soft and I had no trail shoes on – but tapped her on the small of the back and said come on then – she took one look at me and started running hard towards the finish line!
I laughed and sprinted as far as I could – obviously we both could’ve run the race faster as we sprinted to the finish line – she beat me by 1 second – loved it. Loved the race photos of our finish too!
Gun time for the 7 miles was 1:09:02 but my garmin says the actual time was around 1:08:35 and after downloading my run data I found I had a new PB for my 10K of 58.45 which I was stoked with. I think I must just run better in the cold than warmer weather!
The ButterCup Project 