Brighton half marathon

Freya Gillott Monday, 20 February, 2012

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Oh my goodness. Where do I begin?!   This past week has been both the best and the worst week of training during the whole of the project, culminating in the Brighton Half Marathon. I picked up a virus at the beginning of the week, which meant my threshold session on Tuesday got written off - I managed one, unpleasant interval, and that was that - I took two full days off from everything, and then had two, ‘easy’ 30 minute runs; neither of which I felt very good on! Needless to say, I was not feeling particularly positive about Sunday’s race... But, my mum and I had a nice cheap hotel booked for Saturday night, and I was feeling much better, although not 100%, so we powered on. We arrived in Brighton just after lunchtime, and decided to go exploring. Sadly, the weather gods thought that would be a great time to unleash their fury - wind, hail, rain, freezing cold, broken umbrellas... it was not fun. Still, we walked to Brighton pier, scoped out the start line, and went on the big London-Eye-style wheel - where my mum got vertigo and freaked out!! By the time we got back to the hotel, we were absolutely frozen and totally drenched! After drying off and watching Come Dine With Me, we ventured out to Aloka, a lovely vegan restaurant. We had one of the best meals of our entire lives, and I made sure to drink their Vitamin C booster juice - just to ward off anymore virus!   On Sunday morning, the skies had cleared, the sun was out, and it was a beautiful morning! We met Phoebe and the rest of the Project 26.2 crew at the VIP tent (oh yes - Very Important People we were) and made a game plan. Phoebe was planning to pace us, which was awesome. So, at 8.50am, we went into the pens and waited for the gun to go off... I’m not going to lie, I felt like absolute junk for the first 3 miles. I was running with Phoebe and Keith (a Men’s Running Project 26.2 dude), but straight away I felt like I couldn’t keep up, and they were slipping away. My head was full of negative thoughts for those first 3 miles - bad, I know - but then Keith went ahead, and Phoebe was back level with me. I started to find my pace then, and Phoebe was so full of encouragement. I felt 10 times better, and really felt like I was cruising. At mile nine, it started to get tough - especially so when I looked at my Garmin, and realised it said I’d done 9.4 miles, yet we’d just passed the nine mile marker. I was running hard, so it was a huge blow to realise I was half a mile behind where I thought I was. I think Phoebe noticed at that point too, and the pace seemed to pick up a bit (or at least it felt like it did!). The pace, by the way, was basically threshold pace - and it was hard. I was breathing heavily and it was tough, but Phoebe was just incredible.   Mile 11 was so tough - I knew I had two miles to go and that my Garmin and the mile markers didn’t match and I was struggling, and suddenly I just felt overwhelmed and couldn’t breathe properly. I was basically having a panic attack, and Phoebe made me stop for 25 seconds, just to breathe. That was all it took to get my breathing under control, and then we were away again! The last couple of miles were hard, and I know I certainly had my Ugly Grimacing Face on... but if that’s what it took to cross that line strong, that’s what I was going to do! I saw my Garmin at 13.1, and I’d smashed my PB - but the finish line was a half-mile away! I may or may not have said to Phoebe ‘where is the f****** finish line!?’ (Keep in mind, I was digging as deep as is possible to dig at this point!), and before I knew it, there it was... a beautiful white archway of joy! I managed to have a little surge of speed in the last 50 metres, with my arms in the air as I crossed the line - and then I promptly burst into tears all over Phoebe!   I have never, ever run so hard or tried as much as I did. The last five miles were the toughest I have ever run, and it took every ounce of effort to get to the finish - and I really couldn’t have done it without Phoebe; she was abso-freaking-lutely incredible, and helped me to my PB: My chip time was 1hour 41, but my actual 13.1 time I worked out was 1hour 38 and 30 seconds! Phew. On the way back to the VIP tent to find my mum and everyone else, I downed a whole bottle of Lucozade (drink has never tasted so good), and then burst into tears all over again when I saw my mum! It was an amazing experience. We also found out that the course was measured wrong - my Garmin had been right the whole time, so I actually ran 13.5 miles in 1.41!   Cathy and Claire did brilliantly too, and it was fab to see them again (even if we did miss Cathy at the start!). They really are such lovely girls, and I’m so pleased I’ve got to know them. The Men’s Running guys did a fab job as well, though you’ll need to read their blogs to see how they did! I’ll try and avoid doing a cheesy Oscars-style speech, but I really do want to say such a huge, massive thank you to Chris (WR editor), Phoebe (coach), Paul (physio), and all the other lovely Project ladies. You guys are so completely fabulous, and I could not have done this without the support from you all! End of speech.   Today’s race just goes to show what you can achieve when you push hard and dig deep - yeah, it kind of sucks at the time, but the runner’s high at the end makes it so incredibly worth it. Oh, and I hope I’ve also proved that us vegan runners aren’t just a pasty bunch of wimps!   Happy running :-)

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