A nice scenic 13.1 mile run starting in Telford Town park and running through Ironbridge. It was a special race on a special day, March the 24th would have been my Grandads 100th birthday and the run was to take me through the point where his ashes were scattered in the River Severn. Snow was forecast for the few days leading up to the event and I was spending the weekend with family in Telford, I made the journey down on the Friday night and immediately ended up in a snow storm on the motorway driving at 30mph in the slow lane! Upon arriving at Telford it was apparent that there was little chance the race would go ahead and I was constantly checking the race website for updates.
I woke up the morning of the race to this....... race cancelled time for Plan B.....
The good news is my dad has a home gym including the dreaded treadmill, could I really run 13.1 miles on a treadmill. Two hours plus running on the spot with no t.v no support, nothing? Of course I could! I couldn't let my grandad down.
I pinned my race number to my top, music ready, picture of my grandad next to me and away I went setting the treadmill to 5.5mph which is my usual outdoor running speed. I couldn't believe how slow the miles weren't ticking over and not having anything to look at other than the console stating just how far I hadn't ran wasn't helping I decided very quickly that maybe I should just do a 10k so started aiming for the 6 miles which would still take me an hour. After a little while I decided to make it more fun by shouting out things to my mom who was ironing on the landing (something I've never ran past before in a race!) "Look mom there's a big hill coming up" I said setting the treadmill to an incline. "I've just been lapped by the winner! Unbelievable" and acting out real scenarios made the experience all the more fun. Every now and again my mom would come running in the room cheering my name and clapping me on then disappear again.
At mile 6 I decided to make a note of the time, my 10k pb outdoors is 1 hour 3 minutes, my 10k time that day on the treadmill was 57 minutes and 17 seconds! Excellent. This spurred me on to see what time I could do the 13.1 miles in so decided to carry on and go the whole hog. Mile 7 I started to flag a little and realised I hadn't bought any jelly babies due to being snowed in the few days before, at this moment my mom came in with a massive jar of fruit pastelles! It was just like running past the supporters that hand out sweets along the route and was just what I needed.
The miles started ticking over quick after that and I found I was enjoying myself I kept it interesting by changing the incline every now and again and even started walking to take drinks pretending I was going through drink stations. Nearly at the finish and 1 hour 45 minutes in I looked down at the consol and started swearing explicitly! My mom came running in to see what had happened... what had happened was the treadmill (which had never been used for more than 30 minutes before) had reset the timer back to zero, thank goodness the distance was still correct. This meant I couldn't be sure of the time for the half marathon but was beginning to slow down so knew it wouldn't be a pb anyway. At mile 10 my sister arrived and started taking pictures of me cheering me on. The final two miles went rather slow and my hips were beginning to hurt a little though not as much as outdoor running.
13.1 miles complete in memory of my grandad in around 2 hours 9 minutes although the treadmill said that I ran 13.1 miles in 24 minutes and 25 seconds! What a run... a massive pb!
As I finished and stepped of the treadmill I was presented with a home made badge from my lovely mom and sister.. it said Totes Amazeballs! All in all I enjoyed the run and it was made all the more special that my grandad was there with me.
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