Earlier this year, just as we all returned to work after the Christmas and New Year break, Jasmine (who works in the Commercial Department at the ECB in the Sponsorship team) started talking about running a half-marathon. I was inspired and suddenly there were 7 of us from the ECB keen to run the Reading Half Marathon on April 1. In support of our colleague Lucy who was diagnosed with breast cancer late last year, we applied to get places with the charity Against Breast Cancer so we could raise money as well.
At this point I was regularly running 5km but my longest distance ever (about 6 years ago) was 7km total so doing 21km (13 miles) was going to be quite a challenge. However without a goal I would never push myself so this was exactly what I needed. Fortunately working for the ECB was a big help - exercising at lunchtime is pretty much the norm for most, we have free access to the Lord's Gym and Regent's Park is just minutes away. Plus our winter had been reasonably mild with very little rain so apart from the weekend it snowed and one weekend it poured, I could get all my long runs done on the weekend. (I say reasonable - but there were still quite a few days I ran in sub-zero temperatures.)
By April 1 I had completed over 60 training runs totalling over 400km (which I know thanks to my favourite app, Runkeeper). I was nervous but pretty confident I could get round without stopping or walking (which was my very modest original aim). The race started and ended at Madejski Stadium (home of Reading FC and the London Irish RFU clubs) and we stayed at the hotel there the night before so race morning would be easier. (They offered a pre-race carb-loading pasta buffet which was truly terrible, but the breakfast - of which I couldn't eat much - was great...) I met up with my colleagues at 9am at the Against Breast Cancer tent in the race village and we all headed up to the starting pens for the start just over 10am. We had perfect conditions - sunny and cool.
Jazz and I started running together towards the back (the others were in the pens closer to the front with faster projected finish times - I don't feel too bad about this since they are all much younger and fitter than me). I felt pretty good for the first 14 or so kilometers and the couple of hills people had talked about weren't as bad as I thought. We also had a few friends along the way cheering us on which was brilliant. The only slight annoyance was my GPS (on my iPhone for the Runkeeper app) falling out when we ran under an overpass which meant I didn't have a proper pace tracker after 9.5km... After about 14km, my pace was slowing so Jazz took off and left me on my own. After about 15 I got a slight tweak in my knee and a bit of a stitch so this slowed me up even more. I felt better after a few more kms but by 18 or so I was really feeling it in my legs. This was also an incredibly boring section along a dual carriageway - only to be followed at about 19.5km by the most torturous section of all - we were running along one side of a road while people closer to the finish ran along the other side and you couldn't see the turn. So frustrating and because my GPS had skipped, I didn't know exactly how much further there was to go. However I finally got to the other side and soon turned the corner where I could see the entrance to Madejski Stadium. I admit I may have shed a small tear...
Finally I was inside the stadium which was full of people and had about 200m to run. My final time 2:17:02 (average pace 6:30/km)...not bad but I should have cracked 2:15 at least. Next time. Instead of being able to stop at the end, they kept shepherding us through to get a space blanket (to ward off chills), remove the ankle timer, receive our medal and get a goody bag and a drink (or 2 bottles of Lucozade Sport in my case). Everyone in our team did really well (all faster than me) and to date we have raised over £8,500 for Againt Breast Cancer which has been truly amazing. All up it was a brilliant experience (even all the running) and I'm definitely keen to do it again.
Pre-race with Milo -
The team (l-r Jazz, Zoe, Andy, Tom, Rob, Sarah and me) -
Nick's photo of me from the stands (can's miss my fluro pink arm) -
Post race, l-r Jazz (2:11), Tom (1:59), Andy (2:01), Sarah (1:48), Rob (2:05) and Zoe (2:02) -
