Hey everyone! This weekend was almost a perfect weekend. Parkrun, cake, a race, seeing friends, good food and lots of chilling.
Saturday we went to Parkrun. It was a bit chilly, very windy but the rain held off…for a little bit. We were on the cricket pitch course which is very flat but very boring (5 laps!). Also a bit precarious underfoot at the moment as it’s quite wet and muddy. In the summer it’s excellent for PB potential. At the moment it’s better than the other more hilly course but you still need to mind your step a fair bit, especially round the corners!
I decided just to see how I felt for this run. In the end one of my running friends from a different run club ran with me. At first I felt a bit pressured as he’s normally quite speedy (we used to be fairly evenly matched but since my injury I’m definitely slower than him) but it was nice as it pushed me harder. I didn’t want to hold him up too much! 2nd female with 22:30. I just couldn’t catch the first female!
Then we rushed home, did the housework, showered and headed out for…yep, afternoon tea – again!
That’s Ben’s “I hate you taking photos” face
It was, as always, lovely. Ham and mustard sandwiches, fruit scones (with ginger and rhubarb jam) and butterscotch banana cake with chocolate chips.
If you’re ever in Botley check out Elsie’s Tea Rooms – it’s lovely and very reasonably priced.
The rest of the day was spent relaxing after a drizzly walk with Alfie. And in bed fairly early because we had a delightful 5.20am start the next day.
Ah yes…I may not have mentioned this on the blog. I had a bit of a change of mind. Ben and me decided to do the Brighton Half (despite deciding against it a few weeks ago). We reasoned that if we survived the very tough 11 miler the weekend before without issue, 13 very flat miles would be OK. I promised myself I wouldn’t go faster than 8-8.30mins/mile and would see it as a training run – a lovely route with thousands of other people.
So we left at 6am. Ouch.
On route to Brighton
I ate my porridge and drank a coffee as we drove over. It was about an hour and some to get there. We parked in the Park and Ride and then got the bus down to the race village.
Feeling lovely and warm in the bus, but dreading standing the cold!
Through Twitter I managed to find someone to run with who was in a similar situation. Cathy (check her blog out HERE) kindly offered to run with me and we agreed it’d be way more fun to run together slowly than on our own!
So we met up in our optimistically fast pen. The race was like no other half marathon I’ve ever done in that I was quite relaxed, didn’t care about pace and was able to chat someone the whole time.
The weather was fantastic. Cold, but clear, sunny and no wind! Perfect running conditions.
It was a fairly flat course (though there were some minor sneaky gradual inclines). The views were great of the seafront and surroundings. But I just found it a little dull running all the way up the seafront and then running all the way back.
But the company was lovely. We chatted about races, running and life in general. It was great! We both were a bit miffed at not being anywhere near a PB but reflected it was for the best at the moment.
The pace felt very comfortable and chatting was easy so I feel in a good place about that 🙂 We had a little sprint finish (to pick off some females…just couldn’t help it) and then finished. 1:49:01 official time, 2,126th.
Thank you Cathy!
My knee was OK during the run. At times it felt slightly uncomfortable in that it felt tired. Not painful, nothing like before…just hard done by. But this was intermittent and nothing I’m worried about. No pain on finishing and afterwards either. Well, my whole body ached but that’s to be expected!
Ben got himself a cheeky PB as well, despite saying he was going to take it easy (1:52:30).
We then met up with some friends who live in Brighton for a lovely roast.
I had roast venison with the largest Yorkshire pudding known to man and lots of veggies and roast potatoes. Food never tasted so good.
Then we headed home and I fell asleep in the car! I did lots of stretching, foam rolling and icing while just chilling on the sofa, before promptly heading to bed at 9pm shattered.
Brighton Half was a great race, definitely PB potential, well organised, beautiful scenery and great crowd support. The goodie bag not too shabby either.
Ben picked up quite a few Lucozade drinks as he loves them
So that, my friends, is what a great weekend in my eyes looks like. I wish I could have smashed a PB out to make things perfect but I have a bigger goal in mind to jeopardise anything at the moment. Slowly, gradually, I’ll hopefully get there.
How was your weekend?
Did anyone run any races? Eat cake?
Has anyone done Brighton half/marathon before? Thoughts?
