My Boosts arrived! We couldn't go away for the weekend without me first trying my new running trainers out. I've been in my New Balance's for a long time, too long. They are now looking very sorry for themselves so a new pair was long overdue.
I set out deciding to do a 5k as we were too short of time for me to do anything longer- especially as I hadn't even packed.
As soon as I had my music on I knew I was going to have to do better than that- I'd go for a quick mile all out, just to see what I could do after a severe lag in my training. The difference in my trainers was hugely noticeable. I suddenly had a bit more bounce in my step and my ankles felt more solid- I normally get some sort of twinge.
I was very short of breath and really had to push myself to get round the last lap of the park finishing in 8:15. This is 20 seconds off my best mile time- its amazing how quick you can lose it when you don't keep up the training so I was reasonably pleased with this. I finished off with a recovery mile of 9:15 which was still above average for me- overall good start to the weekend!
We then headed to Chester that afternoon and spent our time relaxing and I helped Lee with his carb loading...
We were all up early on Sunday and Lee headed off to meet everyone on the race course. I found myself a spot in town to catch him and the other Shabbas at around the half mile point.
The atmosphere as the runs went past, all 4000 (ish) of them was electric. Everyone cheered and were really behind everyone who was taking part; including the giant banana, a couple of spidermen, a gorilla, and a barefoot man in just a pair of shorts (brr!).
This was Lee's third Chester marathon so purely for traditional purposes I headed off for pancakes and hot chocolate with Isabella to kill some time before the shops opened. Checking my facebook, the first update had come through- Lee had done 10k in 48:32 in a pace of 07:49mm!
I won't bore you with a list of my purchases, we'll skip to the finish line.
Having got the update through to say that Lee had an estimated finish time of 12:27 I headed down to the racecourse. The support was fantastic with people cheering all along the course.
Crossing the line in 3:26:48, Lee completely smashed his last marathon PB and really proved to me that it can be done!
I don't know what I thought women atheletes looked like but I seemed to have a picture of thousands of Paula Radcliffes in my head since getting my VLM place which was worrying me even more. Obviously I was completely wrong and found myself thinking 'if she can run that far, surely I can too!'
We all had a wonderful day and it was great to meet some more of the Shabbas. Most definitely inspired!
No comments:
Post a Comment