Run to the Beat UK

Good Morning!

I'm back from my trip and almost fully caught up at work and on my sleep! I tried so hard to stay up last night to hear the US election results but just couldn't so I was happy to hear Obama was re-elected when I woke up this morning! Yes, I'm Canadian, but whatever happens in the US has a huge influence on us and, to be honest, I have more faith in Obama than I do in our own Prime Minister. Since this isn't a political blog, we'll just leave it at that ;)

The real purpose of this post is to tell you guys about the Run to the Beat UK half-marathon I ran while I was in London!

From the Run to the Beat Facebook page (source)

The race was on the Sunday, October 28, and by then we had already had 2 full days of sightseeing so my legs weren't exactly fresh, but on the up side the clocks there changed that day so I did get an extra hour of sleep :)

I had my usual bread, pb (not easy to find by the way; do English people not love the stuff as much as we do?!), a banana, and a few cups of coffee.  Then I took the tube to Greenwhich which was super easy and fun considering most people were on their way to run too :) I didn't take my camera with me on the day of the race, but I did get a picture of the O2, where the race started and finished, the day before when I went to pick up my race kit.

The race started about 10 minutes late, which I didn't mind at all since I was still in line for the washrooms when it was supposed to start! It was really cold and windy but thankfully the rain held off save for a few sprinkles here and there.

I wish I could give a detailed recap of the race, but the truth is I totally zoned out for this one! I tried to take in the scenery as much as I could but I was really just stuck in my own head for most of it.  I will say it was pretty cool to be running in neighborhoods that looked like the ones you see in British tv shows, and having people with English accents cheer you on is even more encouraging :P 

As this was a Run to the Beat race, there were bands and djs stationed along the course but I had my Ipod on the entire time; Taylor Swift's new album was keeping me entertained :P  This definitely wasn't the easiest course I've run. It was probably the hilliest, and there was one brutal hill at about mile 8 or 9 that made me want to hug the lady who was telling us that we had made it to top!

By mile 10 I was so ready for this race to be over.  We caught a glimpse of the O2 as we were running through one of the neighborhoods and it looked so close yet was so far away! I slowed down considerably for the last 2 miles, but I didn't stop to walk at any point during the race cause I knew it would be too hard to start running again.  I kept an average of around a 10:30 pace for a little over the first half of the race but that came down to 11:00 to 11:30 for the second half, so I averaged at just under 11:00/mile and finished in 2:24 which I was pretty happy with; still a 1 minute improvement over my last race :P

All in all, even though this wasn't my favorite race, I am so happy that I got to run in London :) I'll be posting a few recaps of our trip with lots of pictures soon!