Well that was a busy weekend! Five races, five medals and only one lot of tears. I spent most of Saturday and Sunday in sunny south-west London, for the Richmond Runfest. Saturday morning was the Kew Gardens 10k, a wonderful opportunity to run on the quiet and beautiful paths of the gardens before they are open to the public (free entry to all your support crew too!). Having no goal but to run it reasonably hard, I really loved the experience. The route was necessarily a little twisty but as with the half marathon I did the next day, because the race sets off in separate waves, the course is never congested. It’s also superbly put together, combining the ‘feel’ of a smaller, local race with the organisation of a big one.
The afternoons races were slightly more fraught. Traffic meant we arrived, panting, a whopping nine minutes before my poor 8 year old’s race – and this was the first time she’s ever done one where children run without parents alongside. Her face wobbled but she held it together very bravely and was hopefully cheered up rather than mortified when I managed to run bits of the outside of her marked course with her, calling encouragement. The five year old was rather less stoic (cue total meltdown) but the lovely organisers let me run with her after the rest of the kids in her race were off, so at least she got her bling ..
Then finally Sunday morning’s Richmond half marathon. I’d assumed with tired legs I’d just be trotting along but for some reason I felt much better than I expected, so decided to stick to marathon pace, finishing in 1hr 29min and claiming both the half medal, and the Laureus one for people who’d done two races over the weekend.
Now, I feel quite tired by all that. But not nearly as tired as those heroes who spent an entire 24 hours of the weekend running around in 400m circles at Tooting Bec. I can’t even imagine. A huge congratulations to Adharanand, who finished it a mere two weeks after running 130 something miles in Wales. And to the winner, who ran over 160 miles. And I thought some of my track session were epic ..
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