Kilomathon

Today I took part in the worlds first 26.2 Kilometre race... the Kilomathon.
It was a freezing start to the day with the wind blowing an icy gale. We were ushered to our pens very early, and had to endure the openness of the field for over half an hour. After what seemed like a lifetime we were walked to the start line. I was with Graeme, Paul and Kerry and we stood shivering waiting for the off.
Eventually we "ran" to the start... (not quite what I was hoping for), and we were off. I said goodbye to Kerry as she zoomed away, Paul and Graeme running beside me for a mile or so.
Somewhere into the second mile they dropped back, but I knew they were there as I could hear them chatting and laughing.
I felt quite the celebrity as people ran past shouting, Hey Cabbey, I'm "such and such" (I have to admit not catching many peoples names), and people saying, "Ah, so you're Cabbey"
My HR was around 160, and although that was a little higher than I was planning, I felt very comfortable with it, running at around 10mm. I thought that as long as I felt this comfortable I would stick with it. Roger (a 100 marathon club member) said 2 things to me in Marrakech that has stuck with me....
1). If you don't worry about your time, you won't get nervous.
2). Sometimes if you're running faster than you ever have before and feel good, you have to stick with the pace or you run the risk of being too conservative and end up holding yourself back.
The first point was covered, I hadn't worried a jot and was not in the least bit nervous at all. Now it was time to see how the second point would go.

I ran for around 8 miles on my own, and then heard a voice behind me saying something about my bum... it was of course Graeme!!!
I commented that I had hardly seen any walkers and found it very strange. My feet weren't feeling good at all by this point. Every time my toes moved it felt like they were on sandpaper. I had read that talc worked for blisters by keeping the feet dry. They felt too dry and they were hurting. I attempted to run in a fashion that my toes stayed clamped together. If I moved them at all, it felt like tiny needles sticking in between each toe. Ouch!

The next few miles the 3 of us laughed and joked. We passed Terry and Michael at around 11 miles and they waved frantically at us. There wasn't a stack of support along the route, however there were more people than I thought there would be.

At around 14 miles, the three of us were beginning to feel the pace, however instead of slowing down we speeded up...maybe it was the thought of just getting it over and done with.
With about 0.3 miles left to go, we told Paul to go on ahead and race the last bit... he seemed to be buzzing with adrenalin. Graeme and I did speed up to a 9mm pace for that last bit and crossed the line in 2:42:47.
The medal is awesome :-)
We met everyone in the beer tent afterwards. What a great event, extremely well organised and I thoroughly enjoyed it.
Splits:- 10.09, 10.05, 10.02, 10.00, 10.00, 10.11, 10.06, 10.06, 10.04, 10.12, 9.48, 10.00, 9.52, 9.56, 9.57, 9.41, 2.39
HR average 159 with barely any cardiac drift. This Hadd stuff definitely works :-)
Shame my feet are a state! Blisters between every single toe!!!