Things I learned from my first race

Posted on
  1. Safety pins are really useful
    The lovely lady who gave me my number didn’t mention that there was a large box of them just around the corner, so I spent 5mins trying to peel the timer chip off the back.
  2. Don’t use the runners’ toilets if you can avoid it
    They smelt like the toilets at Glastonbury at the end of day 5.
  3. Milton Keynes isn’t as flat as you think
    It’s not exactly hilly and I climb more in training, but after mentally preparing for a flat race, those 88 meters of climb were frustrating.
  4. Vaseline is a really good idea
    It was only a half marathon, but my shorts were starting to chafe a bit by the end.
  5. Ignore the time on the clock at the finish line.
    As I came towards the finish line, I looked up and saw the seconds ticking 54, 55, 56 – a quick burst of “speed” to get me over the line before the minute ticked over. It wasn’t until about 30mins later then I received my official time that I realised that clock had been almost 5 minutes out.

Now for the mandatory embarrassing finish pics.

I finished in 1hr 45min 04secs, you can see the breakdown of my race on this handy results page.

https://www.resultsbase.net/results/1984983