First half marathon

As an unrelated aside, FasterFox reports that it took 44s to render the admin page. Quite ridiculous.

Anyway, this weekend I ran my first half marathon. My target was to finish the race in under two hours and my official time was 1:59:30! Result! Given the weather conditions, I’m happy with that time. It was sleeting when I got up in the morning, which didn’t bode well, and it was worse once we got out on the course.

The first seven miles weren’t too bad; cold, with the odd flurry of rain but nothing that I hadn’t run in before. At the seven mile mark we turned west to run along the foot of the Ochils and straight into the wind. The wind was strong and it brought with it rain, sleet, snow and hail until the shelter of turning south again somewhere between 11 and 12 miles. Those few miles were really testing. My legs were starting to tire considerably, no doubt in part due to the extra effort of running into the wind. Perhaps the cold helped as well though, keeping the swelling in my knees down.

After the fun of the morning it was back home for a Radox bath, a snooze on the futon and then the fifth Doctor story, Frontios. Not bad story, but I haven’t warmed to Tegan at all. Turlough at least seems to have a personality but his counterpart seems a very unlikely TARDIS dweller, always complaining and exploring the galaxy in high heels and a mini-skirt.

Revenge of the Cybermen tonight which, given the presence of a) Cybermen and b) Tom Baker is probably going to be better. Shitty Cyberslugs aside…