The first post... (Hannah)

Today seems to be a pretty good day to write the first post on our blog.  Today I ran the first ever Maidenhead half marathon.  It was a really well organised race - definitely one to be repeated,

I've not been 100% for the past few months, doing battle with a virus that doesn't want to seem to go away despite my best efforts at eating well and resting as much as I can.  So I decided to do the race completely on feel.  I've actually been following that method for a year or so now and I'm really enjoying it.  I've ditched the watch, the heart rate monitor and the stats and have just been basing my training and racing on how I feel.  It makes it more enjoyable and removes a lot of the stress I used to put on myself.

It was a very humid day to be racing!  And I'm not a huge fan of humidity - running in humidity, that is.  I headed off at a decent pace getting caught up in the excitement.  But quickly realised that keeping up this pace wouldn't be very sensible given my dodgy immune system - I've got bigger fish to fry in a few weeks time...  And even more next year!

So I held back a bit and just got into a comfortable rhythm.  My brother caught up with me at 4 miles.  When I encouraged him to run his own race rather than hanging back to run with me, he asked "what pace are you running?".  My response "this pace".  Him "but what pace is that?"  Me "This pace!", waving a empty wrist at him.  And off he went.

I can't say the humidity was much fun but around the 10 mile point the rain we'd been promised arrived.  I found my mojo again and a smile appeared on my face.  I love running in the rain!  My stride opened up, I relaxed into my new found pace and my smile got bigger and bigger.

The support on the course was fantastic.  And even as the rain got heavier the supporters stayed out.  I was impressed at the number of runners thanking them - better than average I'd say.

So there I was, running along in the pouring rain smiling and calling out to the supporters, pushing harder as the rain got heavier and I felt the best I've felt in a while.  It might not have been a new PB but it ended on a high and I made sure I enjoyed it.  That's my first kilomotres logged for my Gold Challenge - one hundredth of the way there, quite a way to go!

Check out http://www.goldchallenge.org/gc/user/bkeartland, https://www.goldchallenge.org/gc/user/hannah.miller and www.justgiving.com/brettandhannah2012 for more details of that...