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March 6, 2006
Friskney Half Marathon
After finding out that my major migraines were caused by stress I took thing easy at work last week and didn't do much running until Friday when I was given the all clear.
Two weeks ago I entered the Friskney Half Marathon with the thought that I could go do a slow run as a long run on the past Sunday. If I didn't feel like it on the morning, I could always stay home and run here, but if I did, I could go run with a 150 or so other people.
So on Sunday morning we set off for Friskney (it is about 2 and a half hours from here) with 5 of us in the car. The other girls were pretty jolly and even Andy (the club coach) joined in all the chatter and gossip. When we got to Friskney, we found an icy breeze blowing while the sun was shining brightly. Not a problem. On with the gloves and long tops.
3 minutes before the race, all the women in our group decided (without reason) that we were going to take off our long tops and just run in the vests. The race started as soon as we got back and within the first 500m I realised that I was going too fast. So I slowed down and settled into a lovely pace which had me looking at the fields and the people and in general just thinking way too much.
Friskney is a flat half marathon. No, seriously. There is just about no hills - and the ones that are there, are barely worthy of being called hills. They also seem flat. The only disturbance in the race was the cold wind that picked up in strength when we started running.
The kilometers ticked by, not particularly feeling hard and me keeping quite a steady pace.... then came mile 10 - we made a left turn and... got hit by a strong, icy wind... straight from in front of us. My legs (not being used to temperatures THIS cold) seized up and made me understand that if I was going to run in that wind, I was going to need something a little warmer. With 3 miles to go I suddenly felt every muscle in my legs move with each step.
So, I took a few walking breaks and then ran again... overall this is what my times for the individual kilometers looked like:
Total Time : 1:58:41
I'll definitely run this race again - it was great. Hopefully next year we won't run into that wind again :)
Posted by karinm at March 6, 2006 7:01 AM