Bad to worse.......

I'm hoping that today, Monday, signals the end of my downward spiral of the last couple of weeks.

After the awful experience of the Golden Acre Park relay I was looking forward to a nice steady 5 mile 'Hospital Route' club run on Friday evening. The sun was shining and it was truly a lovely evening as we all congregated down at Rawdon Meadows ready to set off. Linda, being leader of the session directed us up Apperley Lane to assemble at the end of Woodlands Drive to do our warm up stretches before proceeding up through Woodlands. I elected to stay at the back with Arthur, after a short while I could see Marc walking ahead of me, knowing this was unlike him I hurried along to find that he was being sick. Once he seemed to recover we decided that walking back was a better option than him waiting around for me to run back and get the car to drive back and get him, however, things just went from bad to worse when he became more and more ill. One and three quarters of an hour later we got back to the car park.... in true club (www.eccleshillroadrunners.com) spirit some members ran back for us and we later learned that most had hung around as long as they could. I'm pleased to report that Marc recovered from his ordeal and although he didn't do his usual park run on Saturday was fit and well enough to run the Pudsey junior race on Sunday and finished 3rd Boy, 4th overall - in fact all 4 ERR juniors ran brilliantly!

A chap ran as the Marie Curie Daffodil

That leads me to the Pudsey 10k Challenge, the best bit about this was the fact that I took great pleasure in saving 20 x 20p pieces to donate to Marie Curie since it was the 20th Anniversary of the running of the challenge. I still could not justify why I was standing on the start line when I had vowed after last year's race that I would not do this race again. I really am tempted to say 'least said, soonest mended' but I rather think I should go on with my account so that I may read it before next year's race and be reminded just why I said 'never again'. We had 8 runners on the start line and off we went, Jo, Sophie, Lisa and I were running side by side for about the first 1/2 a mile, I quickly dropped back as I struggled to get my breath, the heat was immense as we turned a corner to go uphill back to where we started. A short while later we were in a familiar wooded area where I knew the first of the 'challenging' hills was before me, I really tried to keep going up it but was reduced to walking half way up, most people in front and behind me were walking too, at the top I set off again and managed to catch up to Lisa, she too was struggling with the heat and said she felt terrible. I managed to stay a little way behind her for a while, she then became very laboured and I was really worried about her. I managed to get alongside her and keep chatting, we managed to keep a good pace.....until the next hill, it was nearly impossible for us and those around us to walk up it let alone run! I joked with the marshal at the top of the hill that a stair lift would be great at the bottom of that, he replied 'that would be cheating!'. I have to say the marshals were the best thing about this race and I was very pleased to turn a corner to see the entrance to the park where the race finished. I really mean it this time 'never again'............

If I haven't had enough hills tonight's club session is speed and hills, in the form of the Co op pyramid, I just thank my lucky stars it's not Eccleshill's two steepest hills, Park Road and Bank!