Successful outing for the stripes

My Conac club vest (not pictured above, but similarly stripy) had its second outing at the Broadland 5k series tonight. The rain poured just before and after but stayed off for the race (although with plenty of puddles around to ensure we got wet one way or another). I ran without a watch, not necessarily by design but it worked well - all I could do was go for it and not be tempted to slack. I ran a good strong race for the first half, including the hill just after 2km, and hung on to 3km but as soon as that downhill ended I ran out of steam a bit. About 4km I found a bit of energy and kept going right up until that last hill when (guess who) Mr "I'm going to take it really slow tonight" Mark appeared on my heels. Grrrr. He obliterated me on the last corner to beat me by 5 seconds, and I had nothing left to come back at him. SO ANNOYING! Still, I was a minute faster than the previous race, so I am well pleased with 26:40. But one of these days I shall have my revenge... (and in any case my age graded % is better than his, so ner)

Alice ran well at 25:35, and Claudia was under 30 minutes so pleased with that. Andy picked up an individual and a team prize, so a succesful night all round. Especially as Sue brought cake! Just not sure whether some people went to the wrong pub...

Since last week, I've mainly been running - Friday lunchtime (Bowthorpe marshes), Saturday parkrun (28:52 - nice easy run), and Monday (also lunchtime to fit it in around other stuff). Sunday was a rest day, including a massage and lots of lounging around at the spa/pool at Sprowston Manor :) On Tuesday it was back to aerobics again, definitely not a very high impact routine at the moment but Sarah did have us doing the old run around the room in the middle of the set, which helped raise the old heart rate. The final abs work felt very hard at the time, but there's not too much sign of that a day later! So on the whole I felt much fresher and more rested than I did for the last race, and it showed, but I need to sort out that last km for next time, dammit.

Photo: Stripes @ Wollaton Park, Nottingham by timparkinson, on Flickr