Well, Stafford Half Marathon was this morning, so I thought I ought to put my little post on here to let you all know how it went........

Woke up at 7am (30mins ahead of the alarm) feeling slightly anxious, just usual pre-race nerves which I've always suffered from in any sort of sporting event I've attempted. Had my big bowl of porridge and a banana and got myself ready for the race.

Me and the boyfriend (and Maya the dog) headed up to Stafford about 08.30, and arrived nice and early an hour ahead of start time, giving me plenty of time to find out where the loos were (always the main priority!).

The new weird ankle pain was really troubling me and I was secretly getting very worried about it.  Did a little bit of jogging to warm it up and was limping in my warm up jogging, and I was starting to worry about whether this half marathon was a good idea at all - with the long term goal in the back of my mind all the time. Popped 1 ibuprofen tablet (my thinking was... just one to take the edge off but not enough to totally mask the pain in case it  got worse)....visited the loo for the last time 10mins before the start and lined up somewhere in between the 2 hour runners and the 2 hour 10min runners.

There was a 1 minute round of applause at the start by way of a tribute for a poor chap who sadly collapsed and died at the finish line last year (very sad). Of course that made me well up with tears (it doesn't take much for me to start blubbing.)

Anyway, the starting gun went and after a few mins of walking to get across the line, started the stopwatch and off we went....... I have a massive fear of going off too fast, and burning out later in the race,  getting caught up in the excitement etc etc so I was constantly telling myself "just keep it steady, don't worry about all these people overtaking me, I might catch them up later." But checked the clock at mile 1 = 9.52 on the clock. Little voice tells me "Oh dear, this is too fast.... you'll suffer later if you carry on at this pace" so i tried to slow down a it, but fell into a good rhythm and after checking the watch again at mile 2 and 3 and 4 I was still clocking sub 10min miles! In slight disbelief at my speed (which is usually closer to 10.30/mile for my long runs), I was full of fear the whole way round and was waiting for the fatigue to kick in.

Had a gel at 5 miles and again at 9miles and took a few sips of water at every water station and when I got to 9 miles I was starting to think that actually there was juice left in the tank and maybe I could even pick up the pace (my brain was thinking this at the same time as thinking "surely this can't be true... what's going on? I thought I'd be soooooo much slower than this!")

The ankle was feeling fine, which again was surprising me, so at 10miles I went for it, starting striding out, picking up speed and the overtaking began. I am astounded at the level of fitness that I've achieved without really realising it... I managed to run the last 3 miles at quite some pace (just wish I knew what the splits were!), and overtook loads of people (sorry everyone, I felt rather guilty doing it) and literally almost sprinted the last mile in to the town centre and across the finish line in 2.06. Not too shabby. Of course I'd have liked to be closer to the 2 hour mark, but considering I thought I'd be doing 10.30min/miles, I'm pretty chuffed with that time, which means I was well under 10mins/mile pace for the race! HURRAH!

I am so amazed by how much my running improved just with the support of others runners to work with and push off (all my training has been on my own) and the support of crowds along the routes really helps so much too. Oh and I reckon the carb depletion and then loading really works!

All in all it was a great morning's work and a great 'dry run' for London. I feel reassured now that despite some injury problems and some training missed, I can do it and I have got a good level of fitness after all!

Just keep your fingers crossed that this ankle doesn't start playing up again tonight or tomorrow. Still seems ok at the moment.

Well done to everyone else with their races and long runs this weekend. Onwards and upwards for the next 2 weekends of long runs before the lovely taper begins.