I winned a medal!

And here it is, along with my race number for the day. Its just a finishers medal, I havent set any world records just yet ;o) More on the race in a bit...



Well its been an eventful few days for me. It started on Saturday when I went to Sportlink. It’s a running specialist shop just outside Norwich and I had my gait analysed and showed the lady the ruined remains of my trainers. She told me that the trainers I had were not the right type for my style but I had a feeling that this was the case as I know my running style has changed since I bought those over a year ago. She recommended a couple of different types for me and then she let me run outside in them to test the difference. One pair was very comfy and cushioned, the other were really comfy and light. I went for the cushioned ones thinking that the extra cushioning would help my shins. The lady then said, “I hoped you’d pick those ones”. And here they are
They arent that shiny and white anymore though! The two ladies in the shop conferred a little and although it's normally advised to wear new trainers in a bit before wearing them for a race, both ladies agreed that the risk of blisters was better than the risk of injury in the old ones so I wore my shiny new ones on Sunday for the rescheduled Wymondham New Years Day 10k.

It was an excellent day. I was up nice and early and didn’t feel tired for a change, Saturdays lay-in had done the trick. I arrived fairly early but saw a few ladies wearing Norwich Road Runners gear so I introduced myself and they let me tag along and were very friendly. Ivan (the coach I normally run with at the club) came along a bit later and gave me a club vest which was brilliant. As I ran round lots of people cheered me as a ‘Road Runner’ which was really nice. A couple more races and they'll cheer me by name :o)


But down to the serious business.. how did I get on? Really really well! I did it in 1.00.07 by my watch (started as I crossed the start line) and 1.00.22 official time (started with the gun). Either way this beats my previous time by over 9 minutes so Im really pleased not just with the time, Im pleased with how I felt while running. I had my Garmin helping me out with pace, I got round without stopping (apart from a few seconds to drink at the water station because I dint want to throw in my face; it was cold!) and finished with a strong sprint finish despite the hill at the 9k mark, so all in all a very successful race. This was celebrated with a large bottle of Heineken :o)

Monday was a deserved rest day and Tuesday was back to the club for the speed session. I really didn’t fancy it. I was tired and it was sooo cold last night but I somehow found the motivation and off I went. We did 3 x 800m efforts with 200m recovery, a 3 min rest and then the same again. It was hard but actually quite good fun as I now had a running partner. We took turns to set the pace and as he was faster than me it was a real test.

Im actually starting to feel a bit like a real runner now :o)