Baxters Loch Ness 10k run…

Today I ran my first (and probably last) competitve 10k.  I finished 791st out of 2600, with a time of 51.52

http://www.lochnessmarathon.com/results/10k.php?offset=750&order=finish_time&cat=

I don’t know whether to be pleased or disappointed with this time.  On the one hand I’ve been walking with a pain in my left knee since I did my last training run, almost a week ago on Skye, something which has been becoming more and more of a problem since the end of August; and on the other hand I was fairly sure I could do better after my first two weeks of training, back in the beginning of August.

Anyway, the day out was great, and I’d love to do it again.  It was a great experience running with thousands of other people, even if a large number of them seemed to get in my way on the narrower parts of the course.   And it was the first time I’ve been applauded for running since I was in school.  I thought that was pretty cool, just as I did when I was younger.

I was running as part of a Trees for Life team (TeamTFL).  Many thanks to Rosie for organising our participation.  She and Colin, Jane and Steve made up the rest of the team, the four fastest of which are listed against our team result of 18th out of 40.

http://www.lochnessmarathon.com/results/corporate_challenge.php?offset=50&order=team_time&cat=&year=2010

Other special thanks should go out to the people who manufacture Ibuprofen for making the run relatively painless.  And to Ross, Kate, James and Sean, who came along to give support.  Sean also picked up a medal for me – as I was running over the finish line I didn’t even notice that they were giving medals out, or that there was a big clock there telling me what time I’d run (I didn’t find out my time until it came up on the web site), or that different people were giving out different sized t-shirts.  My XL will be going to a good home as soon as I find someone who is XL.

Well done to Adam Druett (who recently rode from Land’s End to John O Groats to raise money for TFL) for completing the Loch Ness marathon in 3hrs 35mins.  A pretty good time and his first marathon.  Adam was on the Skye work week we finished yesterday and accompanied me on my training run on Skye last Monday.

You may wonder why I didn’t ask for sponsorship for doing the event.  I’m not comfortable with asking for sponsorship, I prefer it if people give money based on how worthy the cause is rather than the often unrelated actions of the individual, or group, requesting the sponsorship.  I believe that the causes I support are worthy, they are listed on the right hand side of this blog.  Any support for them, from you, is greatly appreciated.

Many thanks to Rosie and Ross for most of the following photos.  More photos can be found of me here