10K!

Ready to Run!

Some people came in costume...

The crowd gathers...

  This morning I ran in my first ever race, a 10K charity run for cancer research!  I'd been meaning to run in one before now, but just never got around to it or gotten injured and couldn't train properly.  I still wish I'd had more time to train for this one; between the rain and being sick and being in France I didn't have much of an opportunity to work on improving my time.  So my time wasn't amazing (one hour exactly), but I did finish !  I even managed to run the whole thing without stopping once to walk, which I was quite happy about.  It got surprisingly warm for how early in the day it was (the race started at 9:00).  Of course, maybe I've just grown accustomed to the cool Yorkshire summer and my body didn't know how to handle summer sun anymore.  It was quite crowded, over 6,000 people there!  Including a certain fan of mine, Jon came to see me off at the start and finish, stayed there on the grass near the racetrack and read Plato's Republic and watched dogs while I ran.  There were also some strange ones out there who dressed in costume (must have been hot!).  Sightings included Winnie the Pooh (see picture), Scooby Doo, and a giant coffee cup.  The route was super pretty, running past the horse race track, through the city center, around the Minster (where we thankfully got some water at the 4.5 K mark), and then down past Clifford's Tower to the river which we ran beside for the last 4K or so.   My reward for finishing was going to the downtown smoothie shop for nice little post-race pick-me-up :)  A very nice first race indeed!

About to cross the finish line!