Not your normal Mothering Sunday 🏃‍♀️

Hello - I’m back! Sorry been feeling uninspired of late 🙁. But there we go - park that there because today was a big day - nope not Mothering Sunday - Cardiff Bay 10k race.  That will be the race I hadn’t  really trained for - well not as much as I should have or would have liked! However as we all know we cannot turn back those pesky sands of time - no man or woman can do this aside from Dr Who of course 😂.

I was where I was - still stood on that start line with my chubby thighs and unfit body - stuffed full of cake from the day before - I’m sure that is not in the runners manual - stuff face full of cake before race day🤔. However brownie points for me - no alcohol pre-race 👍🏻.

So back to the yellow wave of runners - stood in a very cold and windy Cardiff Bay - edging forward step by step to the rainbow shaped start line arch - they really should paint those rainbow colours 🌈 and maybe have unicorns 🦄 jumping out of the rainbow. After all we are chasing some dream or other, some goal - mine just to finish - to finish and hope that they’ve still got a medium t-shirt left and a medal.

I love the medal - it’s like a permanent reminder of your achievement- same medal for everyone - same distance for all - the medal is a leveller - it doesn’t matter if you are first or last it’s the same medal and it means as much to the person coming in first as the person who endured and maybe struggled over that distance! Love my bling ❤️🏅.

Anyway back to the start line being blown away by the welsh winds - thankfully no rain ☔️ 🌧. We were off. I like to take things with me on my run - usually my music but not on a race day - my water bottle, my Gymboss timer,  my running belt with some sweeties, plasters and a tissue in oh and a full bladder 🙈. Yup I would say that it was probably about two minutes after crossing the start line that I really needed a wee. So here I am running and feeling like I’m bursting - giving myself the runners toilet talk - it’s all in your mind - it’s all in your mind - which to be fair is better than down your leg 🙈. I powered on weighing up losing time to have a wee or putting the mind over matter concept into action.  About 3k for the first time ever I could have just stopped and gone back - I had complete end of financial year exhaustion - how ironic that this race was held on the 31st March - my nemesis day - end of financial year 🙈. I gave myself a strict talking to - I was not giving up- I was not injured - being “a bit tired” was NOT an excuse. I set my mind to sticking with my 1:30 v 30 run walk run.

Before I knew it we had reached the 5k mark (still no toilets by the way 😂). Now it was downhill all the way - not literally! I had found my stride - just kept going run walk run walk - closely followed by a large group of adult sized bumble bees 🐝!  I thought that there mustn’t have been a 6k marker, great I was thinking 3k to go surely. Then I saw it - the 6k marker - nooooo - 4K to go 🙁. Could I do it? Then about 300 yards on the 7k marker - realising I’d looked at the marker on the other side of the path - result 3k to go 🏃‍♀️👍🏻. Funny what a difference that makes from down to up in a couple of minutes (still needing a pee mind 😘).

So there it was the 1k marker - the final countdown - the last hoorah- legs like lead, stuck to my intervals and ran for the finish line. What a glorious feeling, crowds cheering and all of a sudden you realise it’s over - at last - then you laugh to yourself as you recall thinking the night before maybe you would go a marathon 😂😂😂🙈🙈🙈. Oh man I can barely get round 10k - I couldn’t have gone and done it all again and a bit more to clear a half - marathon what was I thinking. More like pass me a Snickers bar!