Humdinger of a run!!!

I did it........

Really pleased to blog today. I did the Hestercombe Humdinger, a 9.5mile "challenging" hill road race through the Quantocks. The rain held off, it was cloudy, cool and a great day for running. Evidently it was a good day as the course record got smashed by the guy in second place and the winner.. you'd be well gutted to come second and still beat the record, no bonus prize money for him...

No prizes for me except an intense feeling of achievement, satisfaction and almost £400 maybe more in sponsorship and of course a snazzy finishers T shirt and photo...woohoo!!

I completed the course in 1:43:14 which is just under a steady 11 minute mile pace. It's not fast but I was never built for speed, my target was 2hrs which I thought was realistic at 12 minute pace taking into account walking up some of the hills but I smashed it. The winner did it in nearly half that at 52minute something but he didn't look like a man who started running just 7 weeks ago. Woohoo to me! Running with other people around me seemed better than I thought aswell, having only really run on my own so far. The feeling of overtaking is good, being overtaken just spurred me on to move my butt faster! Using the trees and telegraph poles up the hills to pace the sadly very necessary walking moments, pleased to say they didn't start until I was almost 4 miles in and that was up the first of the 2 mega hills... Maybe I could have walked less and run more but it didn't feel that way at the time.. Still do not understand how some people can run 6 minute or less miles, my legs just don't go that fast!! Feel pretty fantastic mentally right now and the body isn't too sore, even got a nice massage at the end of the race from a rather nice young man.. always a bonus! I think inevitably I will feel it tomorrow, but maybe not as bad as the day after the Grt North back in 1998, or I seriously hope not!

Gotta keep running now, picked up lots of fliers today for more local races but my social calendar clashes with nearly all of them.... think I may have found something to do in May however, a mere 17km with an assault course, mud, water tunnels and a few Royal Marines for company... what have I got to lose....

So, dinner, something nice but with plenty of anti-oxidants... red wine... don't mind if I do!

Z xxx