Where to start.
On Sunday 8th October I ran The Royal Parks Half Marathon.
The scenic Royal Parks Half Marathon, takes place throughout four of the eight Royal Parks - Hyde Park, The Green Park, St. James's Park and Kensington Gardens. It’s a lovely scenic route, but I would be lying if I said that I took it in - I was very focused on the goal at hand.
For a very hot day in autumn, I didn’t expect the weather to be like that or the temperature to be what it was. It made running in it all that bit harder.
Everything from the atmosphere to the food options that are available is top notch. I couldn’t fault it. The event village had something for everyone.
The Royal Parks announce five charity runners as their inspire winners each year and I had the privilege of being an inspire winner. You receive certain perks as an inspire winner, such as; VIP tent entry on race day, start-line photo moment, inspire runner profile across the Royal Parks Half and Royal Bank of Canada social media channels, feature on the Royal Parks Half and Royal Bank of Canada website with a link to fundraising page, and PR support to national and regional media for runner and charity. Along with the other winners we had a start line photo, something to remember the day by.
Before the race started, I said to myself I would be happy with anything under two hours, that was the target I set myself. I wanted to set myself an ambitious target, a stretch target to aim in the hope I ever managed that.
I planned out the race, how I was going to run it but that went out of the window at kiIometere 2. I went out of the gates faster than anticipated, and it was too late to make amends, I had already committed to that pace.
I trained a lot to make sure I had enough in the tank to complete the race. I made sure I had a couple of gels with me in order to refuel mid-race. Nothing worse than running on an empty stomach.
Finally, I got to that finish line, and I was relieved it was over. Crossing that line, felt wonderful, all the hard work that I had put in training was worth it. To make things even better, after all that hard work and sweat, I beat my target by a long way and was very close to the ambitious target that I set myself.
I couldn’t be happier.
As I didn’t have one for four or five weeks, afterwards I celebrated finishing the race with a beer.
