Yesterday was Valentine’s Day! So what did I do for Valentine’s Day? I went for a run, of course, like I do most days. Thankfully Valentine’s Day fell on a Chase The Moon day and RunThrough were on hand with heart themed medals to distract us from Smug Happy Couple Day. My friend Yasmin, who also prefers running to romance, decided to join me for only her second ever race (she would say it was her third because she did a parkrun and “that bloody seemed like a race to me with all the fast mofos”). Unfortunately, the weather was not kind at all. It was cold, wet and windy. I had only flown back from Barcelona that morning and wholeheartedly wished I was back in Spain. Even though it wasn’t very warm in Spain either.
If you’ve been reading this blog for a while you will know all about Chase The Moon and this was exactly the same as the last one, except I decided to take the 5km option instead of the 10km. (And I made this decision before I looked at the weather forecast, thank you). It was meant to be a gentle recovery run at a slow pace to get my legs moving again after the ordeal with the half marathon and the coche de cierre but what with the wind and the rain I found myself involuntarily speeding up just to get it over with so I could go home. My finishing time was 36:36 and this is the first time I have ever looked at my watch at the end of the race and thought “oops, too fast”. Yasmin finished in 35:03, despite having spent the last few days moaning that she would be last. She has made me promise not to post any photos of her but here are two of me. As you can see, I looked absolutely full of joy to be there. It was in no way a complete ordeal and I did not at any point decide that I must be mad to be doing this and that I would rather be in the pub.
7:07 