Well the vegan diet must being going reasonable well as I got a new personal best time for a half marathon this weekend; 1:30:43. I had really wanted to break 1:30 and thought I may just have done it but as I’ve knocked 2 minutes off my previous best time and was 265th out of 3038 people I don’t think I can complain too much. I think part of the speed must be due to the fact I ate quite a lot on Saturday, including a vegan cheesecake (which was really nice).
The actual race was not the most well organised in the world. For a big event of about 4000 people and sponsorship from Nike I wasn’t that impressed. The baggage storage was just a big room in the race HQ where you just left your bag, nobody was really watching them and there were no labels with the race pack, I made my own but seeing as there was nobody checking them I suppose it was unnecessary. The race start was just one big queue in a narrow road with no time zones and the finish funnel, while OK when I went through, apparently got very crowded later on as it was too narrow to cope with the number of people coming along at about 2 hours. All things you would expect experienced race organisers to have foreseen. Still with a new PB I’m fairly happy.
The weather was good for the most part but very very windy. It also rained at one point but that was after I had finished and was safe and warm inside race HQ happily eating a banana.
The only very thing I did was that after the race I went for a shower, to keep them from getting wet. I hung my shorts over one of the pipes over the shower thinking
"must not forget those"
Of course I did forget them and so they may well still be hanging on one of the pipes over the showers in the men’s changing rooms in said pavilion. I shall have to see if I can get them back.
I ran the race with my friend Chris who despite not having as much time for training as he would like managed a very respectable 1:57. Much faster than I think I could on that amount of training. After the race he very kindly invited me back for a meal at his house and made an absolutely delicious, vegan friendly, Thai curry with vegetables and marinated tofu. We also had vegan friendly Swedish Glace ice cream (http://www.fayrefield.com/gallerySwedish.htm) and his wife Caille had also bought in Vegan friendly luxury dark chocolate from Morrisons (bless her) which were really nice. I also got to look after their 7 month old daughter Analena which I really enjoyed. Over all I had a really great day, good time, good food and good company. What more could I ask? I would still like to beat 1:30 for a half marathon but I have Reading coming up at the end of the month so maybe I can try again then?
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