Firstly please many apologies for the totally self indulgent nature of this post.
Well that was fun! The Anglesey Half Marathon and my first ever race, now firmly done, dusted and consigned to the history books.
Things started well on the Friday when I got the dreaded annual call ... "the hay's been cut and we're baling tomorrow" ... "WHAAAT!!!, but I've got a Half to run on Sunday" ... "Tough" ... so my meticulously planned pre-race preparation consisted of lugging 400+ bales of hay on to a trailer and then back off the trailer and into the barn. I tried to convince myself it would count as non impact cross-training.
ush:
So, after a somewhat sleepless night it was up at 5 and the drive up to Anglesey, after a short detour through a car boot sale cunningly placed half a mile before the actual race arena, I arrived and found registration etc. to be pretty straightforward, although nerves were really kicking in and struggled a bit to pin my number on :'(
Then it was on the bus and out to the start point, where I spent the next 30 minutes trying to look inconspicuous amongst the myriad of seemingly uber fit athletes that had suddenly arrived.
Then with a blast of the horn we were off. Now, reading RunnersWorld the course is described as 'undulating', I think whoever wrote that stopped prematurely in the dictionary and should have read on until they got to 'uphill' !!!! The first 5 miles seemed to be mainly upwards with brief flat sections, before levelling out for a couple of miles of breathtaking scenery (and it certainly lived up to its name as I definately had no breath at that point!).
There then followed a very sharp downwards drop through a small village before levelling out and then facing 'the hill'. Here I have to give an honourable mention to a certain forumite who helped me navigate the hill. Step forward Mr Beasty whose mantra and sagely advice of
'Remember its only one foot in front of the other' was put into good effect with a self conversation something like this :
... "Oh god, I think I'm going to die"
... "No you're not, remember Beasty said its only one foot in front of the other"
... "Well Beasty's not &%
[email protected] here running up this mountain is he."
... "Look its not that bad really is it, remember just one foot in front of the other"
... "Aaargh, if I still had a basic connection to my feet then maybe I could"
... "But Beasty said ... "
... "Well Beasty can just go ..... ooh look I'm at the top!! Thanks Beasty! :d"
In fact this inner argument caused so much distraction that I actually overtook a number of other runners on the 2 mile incline :d , so indeed thanks Beasty (and apologies if you felt like someone was practising voodoo on you late Sunday morning!).
Then there was a short downhill section before the final long 2 mile drag up a slight incline to the finish.
Finally crossing the line and completing my first ever half marathon a tired but elated man.
I am runner ????
It being my first ever I have nothing to compare it against but I certainly found it to be a tough course and the heat of our indian summer certainly didn't aid the cause, but all in all a very enjoyable experience (although my legs are telling me different this morning :'( ).
Then the final absolutely barking maddest bit of it all .. my time ...
02:02:02 totally, completely, utterly, unbelievable.
