I Did It!!

Oh my gosh I didn't realise just how hilly the hill race was going to be...haha maybe that's naive but I don't think there was any flat land! I expected it to include hills but not to be all hills.. I was wrong! It was all on trails as well which I'm not too used to but I enjoyed, there were some lovely views and I loved the race atmosphere the speedy runners at the front crossed by us at one point and were cheering the slower ones on and I got to see Mike briefly so it was nice for us both to know we were both doing ok.

I can't even begin to describe how tough and steep the hills were though, I ended up having to walk up a lot of them. I felt like such a fish out of water at the start, although my bib number says 383 the numbers must have carried on from a previous race, there were 54 runners and Mike and I were the only runners not affiliated to a club! I was ahead of a few runners for most of the race but they passed me right near the end so unfortunately I came last. The competitive side of me hates that, but I didn't drop out, and a few people did, I'm happy I finished it and I was only 30 seconds behind the women who passed me, I just couldn't quite keep up at the end. I was chatting to them at the beginning of the race and one of them had been running for 10 years and run in national cross country championships so that made me feel better about coming last, there was really tough competition on a tough course. Everyone who we spoke to at the start about it being our first race looked at us like we were insane! They were all saying, you do realise how hilly it is don't you... It was probably good that we didn't realise just how hilly it was until we were doing it else we might well have chickened out!

Anyway I'm going to have to leave you with that very brief race report as Mike's little sister is on her way from down south and we don't get to see her very often so I'll be off the computer for a while. I will leave you with a few pictures! I think my final time for the run was 7.3 miles in 1.20 the official results aren't up yet.. please don't judge the time it was soo hilly!

Ready to go

Outside the registration area.

That's me in the distance.

Almost there...

It's over!! Phew!