James - 3.1

22:05
Top 10 out of a few hundred

Sorry for the vague ranking, but to my surprise there was no more accurate measurement at this race. I've been spoiled on bigger ones. The top 10 is according to my parents who were at the finish line, so who knows, but first place was a time of 19:44, so most of you could have won this race.

The day started with me running over hills in this park desperately looking for the start line. I ran down a bumpy one, stepped up to my heel in mud, and ran frantically some more. Got to the registration desk to pick up my information pack 3 minutes before start time, then found out I didn't need to even wear my number and there was no timechip. Tried desperately to get long trousers off over trainers, to no success, had to take shoes off first (I had shorts underneath). Jogged over to start line literally as the 10 second countdown started. This has been so cinematic, I thought. Surely I will win!

Well I didn't, and because I didn't have time to pay attention at the start I had no idea how near the front I was, although I passed a lot of people and very few passed me. For most of the race I was with or near 5 other people, which was kinda fun, to have that few people keeping your pace. My legs were fine, but I felt exhausted almost straight away, again. And my shoelace came undone after 3 minutes. And even though it was a race in a park we had to dodge horses and cars. Even though it was an environmental event.

Oh yes, I then went and planted a Silver Birch tree! The event was called a tree-athlon, you see. It was very satisfying.

I was pissed off for a while afterwards by a man on the winners stage who said something shitty and sexist when he was supposed to be congratulating the female runner-up. I shouted "Thanks Bernard Manning!" If you want to read an email I sent about this incident, complete with bile, you can click here.