Palpitations

I was an hour away from Peterborough on my way home when I got a flutter of palpitations. Palpitations are not good... they normally mean I'm about to get a full blown awful cold, or even worse... flu.
A tear trickled down my cheek as I thought about the day I'd just had. I wiped it away quickly before Graeme could see... fancy crying over a stupid race! Too late, he squeezed my hand and was about the fortieth person to say I'd done the right thing. It was no consolation that I'd done the right thing though!

The weekend had been brilliant with fantastic company, a laugh, lovely food and the possibility of a massive PB for me. I knew I could do 8 minutes, but I wanted to get closer to a 10 minute improvement on my half marathon PB.
Kerry hadn't felt well and said she would pace me to my target but she didn't know how she would feel during the race and if I wanted to go on, to do that and she wouldn't be bothered.

As usual the race started and Kerry was chatting and cheering with the spectators, and I was my usual knackered self. However it was just the first couple of miles I would feel like this, then I'll be fine. By 2.5 miles I wanted to walk but Kerry put her hand on my back and told me I didn't need to walk as it was less than 3 miles into it. She was right, what was wrong with me?
She talked about my XL vest and how far and fast I could run in it, she talked about all of my training and I was not feeling hot at all.. there was a lovely breeze... she asked me did I want her to shut up and just let me get on with it. I shook my head, any other day this sort of thing would be motivational and I'm sure at some point I'll pull myself together. I couldn't really speak because I felt so bad.

By 3 miles I HAD to walk, I was starting to feel sickly. Kerry was great, getting me to jog to the water station. I got a bottle and poured quite a bit over my hat and had a drink while Kerry soaked her flannel and put it on the back of my neck. I took 2 shot bloks which made me want to wretch and then I started to run, telling myself I had to pull myself together.
At 4 miles, as I was almost sick, I called it a day. I'm turning out to be quite the DNF Queen! I have pulled out of 3 races now, and they have all been this year!

So, after leaving a worried looking Kerry, Paula and Graeme (who had caught up to us by this point), I walked about a mile or so back to a place where Terry kindly came and picked me up.
I was freezing and was given a space blanket by a marshall (the first space blanket I have ever used I think!). I felt like an idiot! Terry then gave me his jacket, which I wore for most of the morning despite the lovely warm sunshiny day!

I'm now home and am deteriorating slowly.