Congleton Half-Marathon

Race Day!

 

I got everything ready on Saturday so that I could have an early night and hopefully a good sleep.  As you can probably guess, this didn't happen at all.  I got to bed at 10 past ten but by half 1 I was still awake and hadn't slept a second.  When the alarm went off at 5 it felt like I'd only slept 10 minutes but somehow I managed to drag myself up and get ready.

 

It wasn't a great start of the day because I went to pick Anne up but left her full address, which is on my phone, in the bag on the back seat.  I only wrote down the postcode for Tomtom so I couldn't remember the number and drove straight past Anne's house.  She panicked and thought I had left.

 

Eventually we all got together and had a very quick and quiet journey to Congleton.  It was quite misty at times but luckily the motorway was completely clear.  On arrival we picked up our numbers and even had time for a cup of coffee before the race took off.

 

Just like Burton 10k, the race started off at barely walking pace so it took a while before we got to the starting point but this time it didn't matter because we had the chip so the time should be accurate anyway.  The first 3 miles were tough because it was extremely cold and I was very stiff.  Then as we got out in the countryside, it started to warm up as the sun tried to come out and I suddenly realised that I was actually enjoying the run.  The pace was comfortable, the roads were smooth and quiet and the air was fresh from the early morning dew.

 

We all were armed with bagfuls of snacks and energy gel, etc but didn't really need any of them until the 11th mile when I had one of my free sample energy gels from Zipvit in preparation for the vertical hill at 12 miles.  I say vertical because that's what the hill looked like on the map and it wasn't far of from correct.  I did have to walk a bit at the steepest part but as soon as it became less severe, I continued running.

 

The last bit was the best bit.  Sue was there cheering us on which was very nice and I think Brian was there too taking photos, so it will good to see those later.  i thought I heard them announce my time on the tannoy as 2 hours 17 minutes but that wasn't quite correct because my chip time was 2:22:59.  I'm still pleased because it's still well below my 2 and a half hour target.