Racing for Life

I stepped out of my comfort zone in a big way today. I am not, have never been and never will be a runner but a few weeks ago sanity left me and I signed up to do the Race for Life. The train of thought is now lost to me but included things like 'get fitter', 'good to do something different', Cancer Research is a good thing', '5km - how hard can it be?'...

So, over the last few weeks I have been reluctantly going for runs, accompanied by radio 4 pod casts on J's MP3 player, begging everyone I know for sponsorship and actually getting a bit fitter!

Today, supported by J and the Smalls, my lovely friend Sonia and her family, we went all the way to Edinburgh by car and bus and were greeted by this amazing sight.

Yup, somewhere in the mist is Arthur's Seat and we were going round it. And up a considerable bit of it.

Here we are waiting a little apprehensively for the start. At least I was apprehensive. Son has done a marathon or two in her time...

My mission had been to run the whole way. A mission in which I failed quite spectacularly. The first 2km were even more steeply uphill than I had been expecting and after about 1.5 I was beaten and walked for a bit. After that I managed to run most of it with a few wee stops to remove jumpers and sort out shoe laces. Son did her best to spur me on and I did my best not to collapse in a whimpering heap.

Here we are just before the finish.

And again a few seconds later once I spotted J with the camera.

Finished in 38 minutes. Short-lived running career firmly behind me!

I am pretty pleased with myself for going through with it though, and for raising £242.00 at the last count for an extremely worthy charity. If you want to add to that total you can do so by clicking here.

And this is why it was all worth while.

xx