4 December 2006
10km in 62 minutes and 26 seconds
You might remember that I mentioned something about running last month. I’d just received my number for the Percy Pud 10km. That race was yesterday. (You can view the route on MapMyRun.com.)
Being a newcomer to running, I was worried that everyone taking part would be hardcore athletes who would leave me for dust. You can imagine my relief when I saw two men dressed in a pantomime camel costume. “Great,” I thought, “at least some people aren’t taking this too seriously.” So, imagine my horror when I saw the camel running in the opposite direction to me, having already completed the outward part of the race before I’d even completed 4km!
From the race report:
Amongst the finishers were two local athletes Stuart Maycock and Shaun Marsden who ran in a two man camel outfit and beat most of the field finishing in 40 minutes 18 seconds – a new world record for a 10km race by 2 people dressed in a 2 man panto outfit!
Well done them. Obviously running 10km just wasn’t challenging enough! Also running past me in the opposite direction was some famous guy that I recognised as being one of the psychologists off Big Brother. Turns out it was probably Geoffrey Beattie, as his name appears in the results as finishing 299th in 45:43.
Even though I was beaten by a pantomime camel, I’m still mega-impressed with my time. According to the provisional results, I came 969th out of 1130 runners and finished it in 62 minutes and 26 seconds!
Despite rumours of 70 mph winds and heavy rain (I’m not sure who started those...) the weather turned out to be pretty good and the five of us who took part from work all did really well. However, since I didn’t win, I didn’t get chance to make a speech, so here it is now:
Special thanks goes to my running partner, Rachel, who helped me through it by offering me words of encouragement when I was running too slow and shouting at me when I was running too fast. And thanks to Dr Chris Hill, who helped ease the cramp that was crippling both my legs as I lay flat out on the pavement on the way back to the car.
And finally, thanks to my body for letting my legs ache just a little bit today. Surely that’s better that having the theme from Steptoe & Son go around your head – innit?
Update: 5 December 2006 (10:17)
Some photos of the event are available via TAimages.com. If anyone knows of any more, please let me know!
4 Comments
Congrats on your first race, from one slow guy to another.
Happy New Year
