Coventry Half Marathon

It was a hot one! By 9.30 when the race started it was already very warm and coupled with a mostly uphill course to six miles made it a bit difficult. I (as usual) felt lucky to be well and make the start line, especially as I had not been sleeping well the previous few days. I was more nervous for this one than Bristol as the heat worried me a lot - I have no temperature control! If it's a little warm, I'm at boiling point before my temperature starts to come down. At around mile 5 Scooby Doo (yes, really!) who I am friends with came back to run with me as it was a bit warm for him in the costume so he was happy to plod at my pace. Was good to have company and made the race seem much easier. At mile nine we caught up with another friend who was suffering as he hadn't been well the previous two days so we stayed with him and walked a fair bit from there. We finished around the 2:55 mark which yes, was slow but I always said it was a question of survival in the heat! Three weeks to the Birmingham Half now which I had ideas of trying to break my 2:42 at Bristol, but having seen the elevation for the course it's not going to happen! I'm hoping to do another long run next week (after recovering his week!), I've been for a bike ride today to exercise my legs without putting any strain on them, plus I just didn't have the energy to run. Hopefully I can run on Thursday and do parkrun on Saturday. Feeling good about running and trying to Chi run on my long runs so that I can do long distances in my Nike Free's. I'm up to 10km in them so far and as long as I concentrate on my form, I have no joint problems. Life is good!