I’m running in the Dublin Mini Marathon on Monday 1st June. It’s a 10 kilometre race. I hope you will be able to sponsor me and support Arc Cancer Support Services.
I wouldn’t quite say I’ve got the running bug. Unlike a friend of mine I don’t look forward to my run every (second) day. I’m always glad when I’ve done it and building up to 10 kilometres (again!) over the last three months have given me a real sense of achievement. And a waist!
When I started running again (about a week before a significant birthday – analyse that!) I decided I was aiming for the mini-marathon. It’s finally nearly here and it will actually be my second race! To get in the mood (!) I took part in the Terenure 5 Mile. I would highly recommend this race to anyone starting or improving. It’s a nice flat race with a dedicated lane. There were very few walkers who were instructed to walk on the pavement as the runners passed them by. It kicked off at 11am, far enough from breakfast but not after lunch (hello Mini-marathon organisers: 2pm?)
This is what me + 5 miles looks like.Doing this race gave me a real sense of achievement and a strong idea of how I might hope to do over 10km. It was my first time running with other people and also with an audience. I didn’t really notice much except for a few incidences. There was a couple of folk rooting for us at the top of the (very slight) hill and they really spurred me on. I overheard a pedestrian saying to her companion, “God it’d really make you want to head to the pub for a pint.” Then a young kid near the end, standing outside his house, shouting, “I’ve got a Wispa for you!” cracked me up.
The only slight disappointment was that I wasn’t able to use my time (ahem 47min39sec) for the mini-marathon because it was 3 days after their closing date for qualifying times. I wonder will I manage it in under 75 minutes and make the fast joggers category…?
It’s amazing the hooks that keep you going when you are pushing yourself like this. I’m running the mini-marathon in aid of Arc Cancer Support Centre. You can sponsor me via MyCharity.ie. I know that thinking about all those donations and the work that Arc do is going to give me a massive push on the day. Thinking about the people it will benefit, two friends in particular, will keep my feet flying. Thinking about their positivity in the face of uncertainty will get me over that finish line.
I used the Run10k App to get me this far and highly recommend if you are starting from scratch.
Next plan is to start going to the Tymon Park Run and improving my speed. I will use a training programme from RunKeeper to help me do this. Nipper 1.0 says he is going to start training with me over the summer. This would be great!