James - 6.2

Time: 46:27
Rank: 2306/~33,000

Sorry for keeping you in suspense! So, I am surprised I came so high in ranking. And really quite pleased with my time. I didn't get under 45 but Alison was eerily correct when she said I would do under 46:30. I must be honest, I did not feel like it was going great for much of the run. I got stitch-like pains just 5 minutes in, and towards the end found it really almost impossible to sprint or keep up an increased speed. But I tried my very best. My legs have been sore today, especially when walking to the health store in Hale (Luke and Alison know the work of this task). (Don't worry, my mum came to help me carry.)

The fact though that 10K didn't really seem that far must be a good thing, since that wasn't the case when I did the race 2 years ago and I had been training for a few months then too (almost knocked 5 mins off that time). There were signs for the first 6K but after that I didn't see any until it said 800m left, which was annoying. I seemed to be doing each one in about 4:30 until then, which if I'd kept it up would have been 45.

I know that there is room for improvement and that feels good (for one thing, gotta get a better sleep pattern). I am tempted to enter for another race. They do these large 10Ks all over the UK and Ireland, and there is one not far from here in September called The Great Yorkshire Run. It would give me reason to carry on the training since that is only 4 months off but I don't know if I would be burnt out and actually want to commit to that.

My dad came in at 01:04:38 (32nd place for his age group!). He was a bit disappointed because he thought he had done it in under an hour until we checked online, but he had calculated it wrong with regards to when he went under the start line. Especially since he wanted to beat his time of 1hr 2mins from last year. But I think he was alright. He also insisted he saw signs after 6K, bah.

I had forgotten what it was like running with so many people. It really is easy to find yourself going too fast to just try and overtake. But, even though the "atmosphere" often consisted of overplayed songs like Mr Brightside by The Killers and Eye of the Tiger being pumped from large speakers at the side of the road, it's hard not to feel some inspiration to push harder.

Thank you all for your inspiration and advice also!

After the run I met my mum and we went into the lobby of a fancy looking hotel (my dads wave was only just starting) and she drank tea while I drank nasty corporate PowerAde that was given to me in my goody bag (but tasted good right then). I was surprised they let runners in, but not many others came, surprisingly. She said I stank. It was gone 6pm when Usain Bolts race happened and it was a horrible rainy day (not during the morning thankfully, just cold enough to cause a cold sweat) so we watched it on TV. He was pretty astounding. One of the 4 women in the womens 150M was a 17yr old who ran at Sale Harriers (a club Luke went to during his time here).

I made a half-arsed attempt at raising money for this womens group called Object. I have raised a good few pounds. I know you are students but if you fancy donating, here is their website and their paypal donation page. Even if you (men) can't donate, have a look at some of the things they have to say. That would be decent stuff.

Here is a story about how the pro runners did, if you don't know already and are interested. And here's some geeky stats.

Age Group Position - 1484
Gender Position - 2149
Age Group and Gender Position - 1377
3K - 00:13:43
5K - 00:23:00
7.5K - 00:34:55