My Event Ratings

Overall score		80%
Would you do it again?		Yes
Details:
Scenery		100%
PB potential		100%
Atmosphere		60%
Organisation		60%
Value		80%
Beginner-friendliness		80%

In short: I recorded a PB - It was my first race!
In full: (This is copied from Begineer forum)
Hi, well I certainly picked a freak week for my first event, having booked a 10k taking place in October I was expecting a nice cool autumn day .... well, barring snow I couldn't have got it more wrong!

My story is in an earlier message, but having only started running in June and a foot problem hampering training I went into this 10k never having run more than 5k. However, I had my 10yr old son for company, a very fit Banbury Harrier junior, but also never having run this distance.

So we got to Blenheim early, with wife and son no. 2 in support and my Sister and a friend also running, had a good look around which was handy as we found the 'proper' toilets in the courtyard which saved a long queue for the portaloos (quite handy as we were drinking loads and suffering the obvious consequencies).

We hung back at the start, Sis went off ahead keeping her own pace as she's got a marathon to do next week (mad!) and Charlie (the boy) and me hung back and enjoyed a very steady pace which was just as well as the course soon commenced a climb which seemed to go on forever. We kept plodding on, fortunately with a water bottle each as it was officially 'Stupid Hot', we'd heard on the PA there was water every 2k, which wasn't the case. But, we kept on plodding up, and up, asked a couple of marshalls where the water was, and it always seemed to be "not far now", eventually we could see a red gazebo on top of another hill at about 5k, but couldn't believe it when it was empty, being told the water is in another 1k. At this point my body cried enough, and we walked the loop, which took us 1k back to the point where the chap said the water was 1k away - but he was right, water had arrived!! So we grabbed a bottle each, drank half and ran on, only to see more water about 600m away, so we poured what we had over our heads and carried on, picking up more of the precious liquid further on.

Shortly after this, around 7k, Charlie (still a 10 year old!) asked if he could kick on and left me standing as he shot off into the distance - I can still hear people moaning about being overtaken by a child. We were getting near the car park and house by this time and starting getting some speactators, who's encouragement really helped, so I kept on plodding, finding wife and Son 2 just before the finish barriers and then it was head down and go to the end.

So, to the point of this beginners tale, Charlie clocked 1:10.20 and me, 1:14.47. Can't quite understand how the winner managed 38mins, but I was chuffed to get the end without the need for an ambulance and walked away ready for 'a cold one' and looking forward to training to get the time down to 1 hour.

Finally, Charlie took 4 minutes off me in 3k, and so could easily have beaten his time, so whilst I'm pretty sure 10k times for 10 year olds aren't officially recorded, I'd love to know how this compares with any others known about?

See you next time

Mark

Date of review: October 4, 2011

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