I did it! I completed a half marathon!

After all these months of training on Sunday 5 September I completed my first and last ever half marathon! At 8.30am I met the lovely Kat, Alex, Mark and Gayle, before we had to go to our holding bay before the start of the race. It had started to rain when we got there so was wet and cold before we even started. We were in the last wave so there were thousands of people in front of us. Alex and Mark made there way to the start and me and Kat queued for the toilet (where they only had 15 for 16,000 partipants, nice one Bristol City Council!) we then made our way to the start. When the wave started to move we were quickly making our way to the start line. Everyone in front of us started to pick up to a run so we were running before we had even started, at this point I looked at my HRM and it was already 155 bpm. As soon as I reached the start line I hit the start button on my HRM and it failed, grrr! I don't know if the start transmitter affected my HRM but it failed to get a signal for the rest of the time. After 5 mins of faffing with it whilst running I decided to give in and leave it alone. I left Kat almost straight away as we both are lone runners and have different paces so off I head on this 13.1 mile journey on my own.

At mile one we approached a pretty big hill that bended round on its self before we headed down to the portway which was a boring 3 miles out and back. At 3 mile point I already felt like I had been running for an hour. All I could see was on the opposite side of the road was people heading back into town but when I was running back into town there was no one the otherside of the road so I was obviously towards the back of the crowds. At the half mile point there was a clock which stated that we were 1hr 15 mins in from when our wave started and I knew I was at the back so I must be around the 1hr 5 mark at this point.

At mile 9 I started to feel the pain in my hips and ankles but kept my head down and kept on going. I was on the approach back into town at mile 1o and the crowds started to thicken and the cheers and claps were much louder. It was motivating having people cheer you on. I came down Prince Street and I could see my hubby and son with my dad at the end of the road, waving and cheering and shouting go mummy. That was a real pick me up and I was so pleased to see them. This gave me the energy to continue on as I knew I only had half an hour until I would be finished if all went to plan. We started to weave the streets of Bristol City and it felt like we weren't really making an progress distance wise at all. At 11 mile the organisers put in a killer of a hill, I really was flagging at this point but there was a man shouting from the crowds don't let this hill beat you, you can do it. So I kept my head down and plodded on. We then made our way back to the centre and I saw my family again at the 12.5 mile point who were all cheering and waving. I knew I didn't have long to go so started to attempt to pick up speed. As I came off the centre and around the corner I could see the finish line. I started to well up as I couldn't believe I had actually done it! I crossed that finish line and it was such a sense of achievement. I did it I ran the whole 13.1 miles and didn't have any walk breaks. My official time was 2 hours 8 mins and 58secs so I beat my goal of 2hrs 10min.

The crowds were so big that it took me a lifetime to find everyone and when I did we sat down and enjoyed some much deserved cake whilst discussing the race and then headed to lunch. It was fab to meet everyone and it was lovely that Gayle and Nic came to support us even though they were not running.

On Monday I have never suffered such bad DOMS before, my legs were on fire. I also put on a staggering 5lbs in one day so there was some serious water retention going on. Now I'm on Wednesday I still have hip pain which does ease the more active I am so I'm hoping it will be gone by the weekend so I can head out for another run. I don't want to leave it too long as I know I will lose all motivation and I don't want to ruin all this hard work I've put in. I think I will now stick to 10km as my long distances from now on I don't think my body can handle it.

So there you have, I've completed the half marathon, got the T-shirt and won't be doing it again!