Well, the running training is complete and all for this!
I spent the whole weekend in Bath with Darren, Toni, Ani and Ian, and then we were joined on the Saturday by Miguel, Naomi, Gary and Jayne. We all met up on the Saturday afternoon and then had a meal in Cafe Rouge. The food and company were both excellent!
We got into Bath city centre for the race on the Sunday about 9.30am and retreated into a nearby pub when the heavens opened. We emerged an hour later into glorious sunshine.
We posed for pre-race photos and then Ani, Miguel and I joined our fellow thousands of runners in the 'orange' section of the start. The local air ambulance helicopter flew over a couple of times!
We just had time for a quick start line selfie and then we had a count down to the 11:00 start. It was 11:09 by the time we passed the start line, and then we were off!!
Also running were Radio 1 DJ Greg James, comedian Russell Howard and the woman who holds the UK record for the fastest female half marathon time. Sadly I didn't get to see Greg James, but I did see Paddington Bear, Iron Man, a group of soldiers running with a stretcher and a pair of Smurfs!
I really enjoyed it. The atmosphere was buzzing with crowds of people lining almost the entire route. It was so good to see our supporters Darren, Toni, Naomi, Jayne and Ian cheering as we passed by them on Queen's Square. I even spotted friends Suz and Chris who had travelled up to support a friend who was also running. There were a few live bands playing along the route and my favourite was a Blues Brothers type band who were brilliant.
My official race time says that I crossed the finish line after 2 hours 6 minutes 45 seconds, so I must have taken 6 seconds to turn off my Endomondo phone app! As I queued for my medal, t-shirt and goody bag with my legs feeling like jelly I chatted to a lovely lady the same age as me (an excellent vintage!) who, like me, had never run a half marathon before.
As soon as all 4 of us had finished, we got together and walked up to the cars because we were all driving straight home.
It was a fantastic day and I thoroughly enjoyed it, both because of the event itself and because I could share the experience with wonderful friends.
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