6 weeks ago 2 months ago, I ran Ealing Half Marathon and I got a massive PB (Personal Best for the non-initiated). After a busy few weeks going to job interviews and 3 weeks in Australia, I finally get a chance to write a bit about it, mainly for me. How boring must a race report be for anyone else?!

The day started at 6.45am with a bowl of porridge, banana and Manuka honey. For more details on my pre-race nutrition, you can read this post. My 2 biggest fans, husband C and baby O, then trotted with me to the race start in Lammas Park.

After taking part in the group warm up provided by Quit The Gym, my bladder (or nerves) invited me to do a last loo stop before the start. But the queues were humongous and elite runners had started running before I was in the line to start the race! I ran up the queue looking for the 1:45 pacers’ sign. Just in front of it I found 3 friends of mine from the Ealing Eagles. I jumped the barrier to join them and pretty much had to start running. As these girls are some of the fastest in my club, I wasn’t sure I would be able to keep up with them and told them so. I wasn’t even sure 1:45 was within my reach (5mn/km pace) especially since my last training runs hadn’t been memorable.

We started a bit fast as I noticed on my Garmin, but B (who I believe is the fastest female runner in the club) advised me not to look at my watch. She was pacing, I could just focus on running. The course started with a few “undulations”… but what goes up must come down as we all girls said to keep us going, head high, knees up and with active arms!

I saw my 2 “bestest” supporters, husband C and baby O, 3 times on the course as the course is such that they could run from one point to another quite easily to see me several times. Good exercise boys!

I felt pretty good up until mile 10 (km 16) where I was starting to feel really tired, but also cold. I worried that me shivering a bit was a bad sign. You see, 2 years ago, after I crossed the line I collapsed and ended up in hospital because of dehydration. So this time around I was drinking a lot, especially because I am breastfeeding and breastfeeding makes you even more thirsty.But I was also listening to my body a lot to make sure I was not over-pushing myself and wouldn’t end up in hospital again! But my fellow club runner B reassured me that as long as I was not feeling nauseous, feeling cold was normal as it got chillier and I had put water down my neck at the start when I was hot. Had I run alone, pretty sure that I would have seriously slowed down at that point.

B stayed with me for the last 3 miles, encouraging me, pushing me (“look at my shoulder!”, “we are almost there, you’re doing great” etc etc) and opening and passing me that last bottle of water 1 km before the end (not an official water station, so bottle instead of plastic glass). From that point, I don’t know if it’s the re-hydration, or just knowing we were so close, I got a bit of stamina again. I pushed as hard as I could on the slightly uphill last few hundred meter in Lammas park. And I couldn’t believe it when I crossed the line at 1:42:01 !! I wasn’t even sure I could do 1:45… well, not watching my watch and being pushed by my running friends helped me do it 3 minutes below that target that I thought ambitious! Chuffed to bits! 🙂

So, what should I aim for my marathon then, hehe?!