Monday 7 December 2020

72.21

The last few months I've been getting ready for a half marathon. As with most events this year, it was a behind closed doors, invite only sort of thing. It so happened that the guy organising it was the old coach at the school that hosts the sandshark cross race, where I ran every year with SCAD, and he knows my cureent coach and so it all came together that I was offered a spot to race (hurray!) I was a bit worried about the weather; in December and right beside the Atlantic- if it was the UK you just know it would have been peaceful until race day and then blown up a hurricane, but in South Carolina the weather was kind to us. It was pretty chilly but calm and sunny and maybe just a degree or two short of absolutely perfect. It was a looped course with as little elevation change as feasibly possible, which suited me too. I was hoping for some competition, but on the day I ended up running alone after about the 3 mile point, but I had the lead car and a guy on a bike for company so it wasn't too lonely. I ran pretty fast. I'd been hoping for and talking about a 72 minute time but I wasn't convinced it was actually possible, so I was pretty happy with the result!
My boyfriend, Alex also somehow found himself in the race, and having never raced anything further than 8k before he did a really good job - 68.28! One day I'll be that fast... The poor guy has had to drive me all over the place recently, run crazy far at a crazy early time in the morning (8am start?!) and somehow still had the energy to stop me falling over at the finish.
I also got to be reuinted with Anna, who some of you might have seen from the IRun facebook interview, but if not, she's a fairly incredible runner. She's a mid-distance specialist, but also runs a killer 5k, and an awesome half. We ran against each other a few times a couple of years back before she graduated, and she kicked my butt. The last time we ran alongside each other was XC Nationals in 2018, but we were next to each other for about three miles on Sunday so that was a really nice experience.
We've been back in Atlanta for about the past two weeks, and I think this past term block has been the longest span of time in the last four years I've been away, so it was weird but nice to go wander around some of my old haunts again. I especially enjoyed being at liberty to walk, rather than run aroun Piedmont Park. I guess absence makes the heart grow fonder, I'm really not a big city person, but it was nice to be back.
If you follow the American calendar, it was also Thanksgiving recently, and I did some cooking! That was an interesting experience, but I made this pie, which I was pretty proud of. It turned out unexpectedly well, so you should all admire it. I doubt I'll make one that nice again!

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