Woodford to Glenbrook

Wow. What a big day. It's 6.43pm now, I've had a glass of wine & am ready for a sleep ;-)

Friday night after work I came out to my parent's place at Penriff for some R&R. Unfortunately I still wasn't feeling very rested on Saturday - I felt exhausted; I even had a nana nap - and I never nap. My right hip flexor was also niggling while walking around the house on Saturday so I was rather nervous about how it would go today. I shouldn't have been.

I left the house for the short drive up to Glenbrook to meet O Runner & CR lurker Wazza for the drive to Woodford. On arriving at Woodford station, we headed up to the Rural Fire Station headquarters to pick up our numbers. Lesson for the day - always keep a stash of safety pins in your bag just in case. They had run out by the time we arrived (just under an hour before the start). I had one safety pin before Wazza came to the rescue with a second. The next hour was spent chatting & catching up with friends. I was really nervous in the week leading up to this race but (as always) I woke up pretty calm & relaxed this morning.

This was a really big day for me:

*longest run in time (50mins) & distance(by 8kms)

* longest race (by 10kms) and

* even my first Half marathon!

Once we were off, my secret weapon Horrie & I let the greyhounds take off and slowly settled into our pace; walking some of the earlier short/sharp hills before settling into a good rhythm once the road flattened out around the 12kms mark. I had (previously) decided to ride the course next year but after seeing the appropriately named "Suicide Hill", let's just say that I'm re-thinking that plan.

I really enjoyed everything about the run - the course, the scenery & the company. People who don't run trails have no idea on what they are missing out on. The kms slowly ticked by & suddenly we were passing through the 21km mark - my first Half marathon! The last 4km however were really tough - I was getting v tired but with Horrie's company, I was able to maintain our pace all the way to the finish.

As we rounded the last corner before the finish, I heard a loud shout only to look up to find Go Girl & Go Baby cheering for me & a few metres further on, my sister-in-law-to-be. I looked up towards the finish & there were my parents & brother with "Go Jen" signs cheering loudly. Their attendance at the finish was supposed to be a "surprise" for me. However I had lunch with Mum on Thursday when she was asking all sorts of questions about the race, rather indiscreetly. It was pretty easy to work out what the plan was ;-)

  

I of course forgot to stop my watch at the finish but the results are out already - 2:44:07. Happy days! I really had no expectations about today other than to finish in one piece (which I did).

Got home not long after 3 after dropping Gnome, O Runner, Uncle Dave & Papa back to Woodford - & picking their brains about a few upcoming events
;-)

Thanks to Horrie for his company today - I can't begin to describe how much it meant to me. And to Twopennys & Go Girl whose immense faith in me more than made up for my own lack of it :-)

I am one tired & happy gal tonight. I still can't believe that I've done it. I'm sure I know that I have when I try & roll out of bed in the morning, LOL!

The week ahead - well that will largely depend on how well I feel when I roll out of bed in the morning but let's just say it will be pretty cruisy (so far as training is concerned). Work is crazy - there will be lots of late nights & early mornings this week; Mr Jen_runs is back from his trip to Germany on Tuesday morning (*yippee) and then I fly up to Brisbane on Friday afternoon for the GCM weekend. Woohoo :-)