It was pouring with rain when I left the house on Sunday - last year's Lordshill 10 mile was incredibly wet so I wondered if it was going to be a repeat performance. Blue sky appeared though - and held.
There were just over 500 runners in the sports centre where we started. Proper loos, well organised baggage drop and rather good technical t-shirts. No chip system which surprised me a little.
There were just 3 of us from SRS - me, Siri and Linda - so just enough to make up a team for the league. I was very pleased when Linda asked if we could run together once we'd established we'd be around the same pace. We quizzed a colleague of mine about the route - tales of rivers to ford and acres of mud.
Luckily, he was wrong. And the rain held off. Linda & I set off a tad to quickly (my fault as usual), doing a weird dogleg before heading north to the other side of the M27. We were mostly on lanes that were not closed to traffic, but good, active marshaling seemed to keep the cars at bay without any aggro.
I love running through countryside I haven't seen before - and this run delivered giving views that I'd only glimpsed at part of from the motorway. I am regretting not taking a few photos en route. Not too wet - certainly no rivers to wade across this year! Chatting to Linda made it very enjoyable.
The marshals were particularly good - as I expected as Lordshill do deliver on their claim of being a friendly running club. Informative, very encouraging - although 1 did give me false hopes of a beer at the end.
Towards the end, their support was very much appreciated, slogging through the industrial estate and Nursling felt hard. I did muster a little energy for a sprint finish.
1:23:20 for the amazingly speedy Siri, 1:42:24 for me and 1:42:25 for Linda. Later, the rain returned - I can't believe we stayed dry for the race.
Do this race next year, it was good. Maybe they'll get some medals....
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