H – O – T
Those three letters are all I think when thinking about this race! Having gone from a snowy March only a few weeks earlier, it’s safe to say I hadn’t aclimatised to warm-weather running. It’s never my forte, but it does gets easier over a few weeks of getting used to it. It certainly increased my sympathy levels for the London Marathon runners of a couple of weeks earlier – 10k was more than enough for me!
I hadn’t had a great lead up to the race. Work had been really busy (spring in the ecology world – never going to get around that one) and I had been put on a new dose of medication that had sent my blood pressure and stress levels through the roof. Headaches and constantly tense muscles aren’t ideal for training and in the week before race day I woke up on the Tuesday to my right calf being very sore and I couldn’t get onto my tip toes – not a happy bunny. I was convinced that was me done and I’d have to sit the race out. Luckily by the time I saw my wonderful physio, Stu, it was no longer painful and I could do a single leg calf raise. He spotted I was rather wound up (I dread to think how fast I was talking) and got me breathing properly. He loosened everything off and sent me away with instructions not worry about exercises and just to remember to breath – good advice generally!
So, although I had a mostly functioning calf, I was under prepared, exhausted and hot. However, I looked brilliant Greenstyle to the rescue; once again saving my mood with brilliant design. I had nabbed some amazing holographic crackle foil lycra from We Love Spandex and got some lovely, soft grape coloured Tactel from Tia Knight. I used the sparkly fabric (along with some black supplex from The Sewing Chest) to make a Pace skort and the Tactel for a Lille Racerback, which I adjusted to make slightly less racerback (the joys of back boobs…). For the first time since I started running there are now photos of me running that I don’t hate. I may have run 3 minutes slower than the same race in February and been feeling rubbish, but the photos are OK – that’s a win in my book 😉
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