Tuesday 23 June 2015

Race day...

Well this has been 3 weeks in the writing - turns out when I don't have training to avoid it's not so easy to ramble on here.

I survived, I am most definitely still alive. I haven't run since I got back. I'm still amazed by how generous everyone has been. I have learned a few things, about geography - mostly how far 13 miles is - about running - hard, but enjoyable - about myself, well, no, I think I knew most of those things already, and about Edinburgh - mostly how pretty it can be.

So my trip to Edinburgh began with locating and "rescuing" my wayward brother. Not wayward in a criminal sense...a good story, for another day. 

My race day began at 5.30am, which, in case you haven't tried it, is not a reasonable time to be up in the morning. Not being a morning person, 5.30am starts do not appeal. I'm not particularly a night time person either, so legitimately being able to go to bed at 9pm without an extensive battery of excuses lessened the blow a little. 

Except obviously I couldn't sleep. I can sleep almost anywhere, at any time. I love a nap. I really believe in the curative power of sleeping. When I got stuck in my higher maths revision, the night before the exam, I went to bed. When I woke up the next morning I could do whatever really hard maths-with-letters mumbo-jumbo I couldn't fathom the night before. Sleep is magical. So long as you can get there.

So I slept on and off, I had all my kit piled up, got up and dressed, plastered my feet, vaselined my bingo wings (what a beautiful picture to paint), ate my porridge, packed my Soreen, located all necessary items, packed my emergency binliner jacket and headed off to the shuttle bus, where assorted other lycra'd lovelies were gathering. These included some full make up girls, and one girl with a fashion fringe, the kind of side sweep thing that isn't a real fringe, just hair pinned across. It is quite a feat of construction and, I imagine, not best suited to a sweaty run fest due to take place under a weather warning of wind and rain. Then I realised how old before my time I am, and tried to stop thinking about her inappropriate hair (that was an awful lot prettier than mine).

I found the starting pens, accidentally made friends with an American marathoner-in-training and a maths teacher and began to think about toilets. I'd studied the route map, I knew where to find them, I thought I should just get one last pee out of the way before the start. Lots of other people were thinking the same, so I queued. As I got the front a full make up, pretty hair girl, burst out of one of the 3 portaloos not 10 seconds after she'd gone in.

"I'm sorry, but I can't! I can't do it. It's making me boak! You might be able to, but I certainly can't..."

Was this a challenge? I had a moment of panic - if I go does it make me some kind of stink monster, like she is obviously disgusting if she likes going in stinky toilets, or I walk out and they'd all point and laugh at the girl who used the stinky mink loo, if I don't I'm essentially depriving the whole queue of a loo...and how bad can it be? And how much do I really care? (Not much, it turns out)

And then my training kicked in - I hadn't been running up and down that Toab Road breathing in slurry and poo particles for nothing - this was my moment, I was totally going to nail the portapotty. (as long as there's no actual poo on the floor or seat, was my one clause). I held my breath and emerged triumphant. The girl was still waiting and looked on in admiration. 

All this excitement to distract me from the actual race. The run was busy, I was in my pen, in my binbag chic, we headed off and I had my first pang of guilt as I threw the binbag away, even sanctioned littering tugs my Catholic-guilt-moral-strings, so throwing away bottles at every water stop really pained me. I hadn't warmed up, I thought 13 miles was more than enough, and I wasn't going to be spanging about anyway, so I started slow, and got a little bit annoyed by having so many people around, but we got going and it thinned out.

The weather warning weather never came to anything (forecast of storms gusting at 40mph weren't really tickling my weathervane anyway - that's surely just a summer's day?), I missed the 2 mile marker so was pleasantly surprised to find myself 3 miles in and feeling fresh. We wound our way through some park, and along streets where people shouted, some other Lucy had a support crew with banners, so I lapped up some of their love (they looked like they had plenty to go round). I did a lot of overtaking/undertaking/dropping back and fore and didn't ever quite join up with anyone the same pace, I'm not sure I was trying to...but I think I will next time so I can be more settled. As we wound through the park I was overtaken by a lanky middle-aged couple, who sounded a little bit like they were going to take over the world (they were German I think, the accent really helps, so read it out loud), as they sped past:

"Zees condeeshons, zay are optimal, no?"
"Ja...Ja, vee could not 'ave planned eet better..."

So that brightened my day for a while.

There were more Lucy banners later as we went through Portobello (?) then onward to Mussleburgh where the actual Lucy support team were waiting. I did have a toilet pit stop which I regretted almost immediately as I seemed to adopt a queue friend who talked incessantly at me (I'm getting the sense I'm not a sociable runner) and it was a long queue, so nearly 10 minutes of talking, and it's such an exciting, joyous, charitable occassion it is just not socially acceptable to be mean to fellow runners, so I pee'd fast and got on my way before she could find me for the remaining 6 miles.

I found my Lucy support team lounging on a tree, and as I went for my jelly babies and water a chirpy man sneaked up behind me, "Ahh! Sweeties!" and helped himself to my jelly babies...which was fine, there were spare, but unexpected...I took a couple of handfuls and got on my way. A mile or so later a lovely lady offered me more, and in trying to show her I already had some I realised that sweaty paws and jelly babies do not necessarily mix well. I scraped off the goo, ate a bit, and perked up a bit. 

The final stretch has a double back section, so as you run out maybe mile 9-11, you pass everyone coming back along towards the finish line. Which is maybe meant to be rousing and give you hope. Mostly it made me hate them, all these happy people with only half a mile to go...but eventually I made the turn around and I was those happy people (happy ish, I was still doing some walk/run/walk interpretation of running), until I saw the elite marathoners (closely pursued by a man in a full Batman costume) speeding by, and realised what I was doing was most definitely not running in the sense that they run. But it was too close to the end to stop so I powered on. And I made it.

To be honest I found it pretty hard, in a funny way...for future reference running 6 miles twice is not the same as running 12 miles, whatever the maths tells you. It's a strange kind of tired, not puffed out particularly, but heavy legged. I didn't like not having a sense of where I was and what was to come. I think I'd like to do the same race again, and maybe have a few months of just running for fun before I get into actual training, I found that I really started to enjoy the last few weeks of training (says she who hasn't run since finishing) - I'd like to get to that stage again. That is the plan for the next year.

Next time - I will practice running with people, I might even find myself a race buddy (said wayward brother shook on a bet for next year, though it was in the aftermath of his adventure/mishap so I'm not sure he was in a fit state to consent to anything), I think I'll run the full distance, maybe with a bit extra, between now and then and I'll find something to wear with jelly baby pockets.

I think I'll get some more accurate kind of running measurer thing - mine told me I'd only run 11 miles, so I think something went a bit wrong somewhere.Maybe a Tomtom or Garmin one, not too expensive, not too fancy...any advice welcome, no urgency, I'm not going anywhere anytime soon.

I have signed up for the Mind Your Head fun run in August, to get me back out and at it. 

I don't quite have a fundraising total yet - still to count up my cash contributions, but safe to say it is a heck of a more than I was expecting, so thank you to everyone who donated, or who had a look at any of the Mental Health websites, or who looked out for themselves or someone else a little bit more over the last few months. Every little helps so they say!

I'll be back with more non-run funs soon.