Jog Shop Jog 2008

[ladyrunner]

Hi All

What a great day we had for the Jog Shop Jog today. The day was made even better by seeing so many friendly faces out on the course whilst I was running round.

First up at Saltdean was Simon and Marion handing out the water to us thirsty ones.

There was an incident happening at Saltdean farm where two horses were gallaping like crazy beasts around the field and a lady was in the field asking everyone to start walking so that she could get them under control.

At 5 miles was Gary in the field of cows at the top of Saltdean. I was a tad worried when I saw that he wasn't at the 1st gate and thought that he might have got lost up the Tye with my water supply!! I was very relieved to see him at the second gate and grabbed my much needed full water bottle as I went past.

The next friendly faces were Ash and Cam at the top of Castle Hill. Once again the water bottle got refilled. It was so hot and I was feeling very thirsty!! I gave Ash a kiss and thanked him for getting me back to competitive running. I ran down Castle Hill thinking about Chris, if he was here running now we would probably be having a right old ding dong - hope you are doing okay Chris?

I pushed up the Snake and was greeted by Tracy Whitle at the top. She offered me a Mars Bar but I refused for fear of being or feeling sick. Checked out my watch and I had 45 minutes to get to the finish to beat 3 hours - I know that I couldn't slacken the pace. So I gritted my teeth and pushed on hard down the slope to Rottingdean.

At Rottingdean I was greeted by an abundance of friendly faces, there was John for the 3rd time, Marion again, Martin (my old swimming mate - haven't seen him for about a decade), Dave the Hat, Tom (shouting "It's only a training run" at me), Jennette and Cam (again).

With only two miles to go I ran down the St Dunstans hill like a fell runner, over-taking two tired runners as an impressive show for Gary :RFLMAO:who was waiting at the bottom with more drinks and to accompany me back to the finish on his bike. I had to keep the pace going for fear of being shouted at. We got to the end of the cliff tops, and I made a hard dash down the zig-zag and breathed a sigh of relieve to be told that I had broken 3 hours. Don't know the exact time but was told that it was 2hr 58mins.

A big thank you to Sam, Graham, Jane, Alex, Laura and all the others at the finish, and also to the Saucony man for my lovely 4th lady t-shirt and money voucher. I'll be down the shop soon to exchange it for some winter running clothing as this hot weather can't last for much longer!!