Saturday morning we drive to Essex where we plan to meet up with Lin who is also joining us and half way home Bee remembers she would need trainers to run in and what is the one thing she forgot (well actually 2, but the reason we never went to the sari shop today is another story). We spned the afternoon shopping in lakeside and a nice family dinner and soon it was bed time for our early start the next day.
6am rolls around and it is time to get up and get ready for the 45 minute drive to Bluewater and the literature says we have to be there for 7:30. We arrive almost on time and realize we are actually quite early. We have a little walk around the village and get some free Lucozade and sit in the sun as it was already very hot this early in the day. We also played the fun game of trying to spot other adults other than Bee and Lin who are doing the fun run without children - it was a tough game.
Just after 8 I leave the others and walk to the start making sure I am not too close to the front as I had no intention of keeping up with anybody vaguely fit. i finally position myself behind the 70 minute pace runner. Before long the gym instructors start the warm up. The way the race was organized is that the women start one side and the men the other, and this was most evident during the warm-up as all the women do the work out in perfect synchronisation with almost 100% participation, a quick glance over to the men side see 100s of people just standing still and looking blank at the instructors.
The race starts and within the first few hundred meters and before the men and women merge there is a long line of men in the bushes creating a temporary toilet, and I was nicely pacing myself behind the 70 min pace runner until i also stopped to use the amenities.
Once back on the road and settled into my stride i keep up a good pace of 6:30 - 7:15 per km, and all is going good for the first 5km and then I see the first big hill, which i just about drag myself up and feeling proud (and worn out) I turned the corner to see the road going up even more. At this point my legs just stopped running and I walked to the summit. I then started running again (now with first ache of the day in hip). This running did not last long because for the next few km for every welcome down hill was followed by a corresponding up hill. This lead to a series of walk and run sessions, as once you stop running for the first time it is almost impossible to run again for any length of time, couple this with the really bad pins and needles and loss of feeling I was experiencing in my right foot.
Eventually I find myself with 1km to go and forcing myself up the slip road towards home, finally cheered on by a very very small crowd and the sight of Bee and Lin and the finish allowed me to do a sprint finish, I also wanted to make sure i finished ahead of some people I had been following most of the run.
I collect medal and my welcome Mars bar and headed for home to see some people still running, it is now a few hours later and my right foot is still very sore and feels bruised, but no problems in any of my troubled joints but they are still not healed as I did get twinges all run and had to slow down to make them go away, but now i can focus on small runs over the coming months to build up my joints, and it could have been worse as I see one person being taken away in an ambulance, I would imagine the heat did not help anybody.
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