Wilmslow - think this got lost in an earlier thread

[stillwaddler]

Felt progressively more nervous as the minutes before the start clicked by. Queued for the loo and then joined the back of the queue to queue again! I have to confess, (and I’m only doing so now in case any of you have the same problem) that one of the reasons I have curtailed the miles is that for the past 12 months or so I have been suffering from the rather indelicately labelled Runners Trots when I have attempted any real mileage. No amount of Immodium solved the problem so I have been forced to find routes with strategically placed loos, or circle around my home patch, all pretty limiting. Wilmslow is a completely rural course and there are no loos accept those at the start and one portapotti at the finish, foliage and tree cover isn’t anywhere advanced enough at this time of the year to preserve modesty and spare my blushes. At the beginning of last week I did some research on the Runners World Forums and found the name a prescription drug that might just do the trick, arranged an appointment at the docs and managed to convince her that Lomotil was what I needed. Tried it out on a run on Wednesday and it seemed to work so I downed the wonder drug with a slug of Lucozade and crossed my fingers.

We were called to the start, I lined up at the back alongside a speaker belting out “Keep on Running” corny or what!!! So very nervous at this point. Starting hooter was duly hooted and after a while we began to shuffle forwards. It seems incredible that a half marathon of this stature and which charges over 20squid entry fee doesn’t have chip timing, it took me over three minutes to cross the start line at which point I tripped my stop watch and tried to start my Garmin, nope, it wasn’t having any of it, damn thing has been playing up a lot and today it sort of gave me a pace but didn’t record any mileage or time. Useless, I wonder if I can get it repaired?

Nice girl came and chatted to me at the start and we ran for the first couple of miles together before she dropped back a bit. I like these random sort of conversations struck up between race companions, I was to enjoy quite a few during the course of the race.

Mr SW advised me to run steady at the start and not go off too quickly, bless him he still thinks I might be able to do anything other than run steadily :-) I concentrated on trying to get in to some sort of rhythm maintaining the sort of pace that wouldn’t aggravate my back or hip. A bit of gentle banter with the spectators who had come to stand at the end of their driveways and politely cheer us on helped the time pass.

One of the best things about running in a race for me is being able to run in the middle of the road, running on pavements is such a chore with having to be careful at every curb and stop for traffic etc. it seems much easier to maintain a rhythm and get into some sort of cadence.

The weather was lovely, just a slight sharpness to the temperature with wonderfully welcome sunshine. What a way to welcome British Summer Time. The first water station was at the 3.5 mile mark so I slowed to a walk to grab a plastic cup of water, unfortunately I missed out on the sponges. I slurped a little, not really because I needed any, but because I thought I should, this reduced me to a walk for a little while because I have never been successful in drinking from a plastic cup whilst running, I only every manage to slosh it around and soak myself and anyone unfortunate to be near me at the time.

The next few miles passed without incident, I admired the view, chatted to a few more people and just enjoyed running in the sunshine. Then the Woman in White appeared on the scene – picture it, brilliant white three quarter length aerobic trousers, skin tight white vest, orange complexion, full headphones. I overtook her, only to have her speed up and pass me, but slowed to a walk as soon as she had done so. We see-sawed in this fashion for a mile or so and then the Girl form the Start caught me up again. “Is that woman in white annoying you as much as she is me” was her first comment!!! We both decided to press on a bit to avoid her, but low and behold she came puffing past us again and then promptly walked once more, trouble is, and probably because of the headphones, she seemed to be oblivious to what was going on behind her and kept moving from side to side which made getting past her quite difficult. My companion muttered that she was just about ready to “punch her lights out”. On the pre race blurb issued with the race numbers it did state that “MP3 players and other ‘gizmos’ are banned”. I don’t choose to race with one, but I can appreciate that other people like to. Has any one else come across a race where they have been banned?

The Girl from the Start carried on while I walked for long enough to slurp a gel and had a few sips of water at the next water station and I never did manage to quite catch her up. Interestingly she was telling me that she has suffered form Diabetes since she was three and seemed quite chuffed when I told her I was running for JDRF, wish I had asked for her name, she’s running London this year, I’m sure she’ll get on just fine.

Mile 9 came along and I was beginning to feel things a bit, but I carried on running steadily, trying to get my breathing regulated. The gel and the Jelly Babies kicked in and I felt fine until the last mile when I just got the urge to walk up the few hills remaining on the course (it’s advertised as a flat course, but it isn’t really!) At least by this time, I had seen off the Woman in White, in fact I even gave her a jelly baby as I sailed past :-) I was really worried about an elderly gentleman whom I administered a jelly baby to, his breathing sounded really awful, each footfall was accompanied by a sort of groaning sound. I reined in quite a few people over the last mile and a half, switching to smug mode when I recognised a few that had shot past me in the early stages. By now the day had warmed up a lot and quite a few people who had collapsed were keeping the ambulance busy.

The finish post was an extremely welcome sight, I had my jacket tied round my waist by now so came in to the finishing funnel with the tannoy sounding “Come on London A-Z!!” which I suppose must have been me.

Forgot to switch my watch off until I had got beyond the funnel system and had collected goody bag and trophy, but watch switched off at 2hours 26 minutes and 4 seconds. Gun time was recorded as 2 hours 29 minutes and 6 seconds. Not what you would call a blistering pace by anyone’s standards, but I got round, my back/hip doesn’t feel any worse and best of all I didn’t need the loo – yeh!!!!!!

Trophy is interesting, its a crystal paper weight with a hologram of two runners and the race title and date, makes a change from a medal and might make a useful missile at work ;-)

Had a blissful leg massage after the event for a modest contribution to charity, the physio that I use had set up 10 massage tables and added to his staff with physio students. On Monday I attended the said physio who diagnosed Piriformis syndrome rather than sciatica, treatment is similar and they have given me lots of exercises to do too, so will hopefully have the old chassis patched up soon.


Well it's a few more squid for JDRF, thank you to everyone who donated, and there are one or two of you who i couldn't contact personally to thank you as I don't have your email addresses, but I really am grateful, if I hadn't been running for JDRF I doubt if I would have made it to the start of the race, so thank you JDRF. Incidentlaly, they had sent me a pingu running vest to run in, but it seems to have got lost in the post - shame, because a penguin vest seems to be exactly what a waddler should wear