I got to Nottingham on Saturday afternoon where I was wonderfully taken care of by my sister who can whip up an excellent pasta bake if you ask her. So after filling up on pasta, bread and Match of the Day I headed to bed to set my alarm for a horribly early time.
I woke up in the morning and thought, "mm, I wonder what the time is?" It was 6:58 - 18 minutes later than I'd set my alarm for! Id set the alarm but forgot to save it... good job my internal clock is in good working order because Lucy had forgotten to set hers too! Oops.
So I ate breakfast, got ready and started to get a bit excited/nervous. We drove to Nottingham University and walked to the start and I started to wonder at this point whether I was wearing the right thing? should I have got here earlier? Should I have eaten something else for breakfast? Do I dare wait in the massive toilet queues?
It really was an atmosphere like Ive never experienced at a race before. There were so many people in fancy dress including a man with a prosthetic foot, painted all in blue wearing just pants! (pic from bbc website)
We were told to head to the area that matched the colour on our race number so we could head to the start line. Here Lucy left me )or so I thought) with nothing to keep me warm but a bin bag and I really started asking questions of myself. What was I doing? Should I have brought my radio? Should I have brought my water bottle?
Little did I know Lucy had followed me the start line, managing to find me in amongst 5000 other runners to see me off. (You can just see the top of the blue mans head behind me.)
The first 7 miles felt great. The weather was lovely sunny and I was enjoying running on the closed main roads leading out of Nottingham. At seven miles though I had to have a brief toilet stop despite having braved the earlier queues. I never really regained my rhythm after that and I pretty much struggled the rest of the way.
About 12 miles in things got tough as the wind picked but by 14 miles it was very tough. My right knee started playing up and I was running straight into the wind. Despite warings having been put up weeks in advance, traffic on the road into Derby was terrible. As we ran in the left hand we were greeted by a line of cars about 3 miles long facing us in the right hand lane. I swear I could feel everyone of them scowling at holding up their Mothers Day dinners. Sorry people of Derby.
I was so close to the end but my knee hurt alot so I stopped for just a second when a man ran up behind me and said "come on, we're nearly there now" so I ran with him for a minute or so until I heard a marshall say "Well done, you can almost see the finish line" and I turned right and there it was, the finish line! I powered down that home straight desperately trying to beat 3 hours as my watch said I was close. As I neared the line though the clock said 3:20. 3:20?! Of course, with the two stops and me not crossing the start line as the timer started, my official time was bound to be slower than my watch time. I heard a cheer come from Lucy to my left who had driven from Nottingham to see me finish. It was a lovely feeling to cross the line and hear the beep as my chip timer registered my time. I had actually made it.
My legs have never ached so much in all my life but I had finished. I got a massive medal which looks a bit like a Jim'll Fix It medal and a bag full of goodies including a free token for a beer at the beer tent provided by local brewer Flagstaff :)
I tentatively made it Pride Park where Lucy's car awaited (good work on the free parking!) to drive me back to Nottingham in 30 minutes! Not before taking a triumphant photo with my medal and kilomathon t-shirt though :)
Im feeling more confident now and I learned a few vital things that Im glad I learned before London - I know I can push on to finish when I have to. Im more familiar with the arrangements and atmosphere of a big race. Im familiar with running with thousands of other runners. Ive got a better idea of when to take energy gels and most importantly... I know where to put the vaseline! :-o
