Brighton Half Marathon

Another roller coaster week.. was aiming for a 16 mile run on Sunday and all was going nicely up until about mile 10 ( about here ) when I realised my heels were being shredded by a combination of the uneven snow and ice on the ground and some rubbish socks that i should never have worn...  Hobbled home in a dreadful mood knowing that I probably wouldn't be able to run for a few days...  Did go swimming on Tuesday at Waltham College, long sets of 16 lengths and pull buoy drills between the ankles was a killer, and it made up for the day off on Tuesday..  Unfortunately I think I picked up a cold after the swimming which was another annoyance.   On Wednesday decided to go to the gym and do some running as the blisters were healing quite well - managed 20 mins on the bike then about 5 miles into the treadmill session when I was cranking up the speed to 14kmph my left hamstring felt like it twanged and I started getting shooting pains...  Didn't feel really bad but something had strained or torn.  Left gym in dreadful mood yet again and decided I'd just have to rest until Sunday and see whether it would be ok for the half marathon.

Went home to see Mum and Dad on Friday and did a lot of looking at old photos and sleeping seeing as the cold was keeping me up half the night..  Dad gave me a lift down to Brighton on Sunday and I had a massage before the race - which was absolutely incredible.  Without any prompting she found the hamstring strain and made it feel a lot better.  Didn't manage to meet up with Matty pre-race as and we missed each other while running unfortunately, its always difficult when theres 7500 people in one place...  For the first 30 minutes of the race I felt like I was running on air because of the massage and managed to get round in a respectable 1.29.25 - however it has transpired that the race distance was incorrectly marked at 13.42 miles so the time was revised to 1:27:16, which was nice.  Matty was chuffed with his time (1:39:19) also and we grabbed a post race coffee on the beach with Rebecca and their younglings George and Phoebe.  Absolutely glorious day albeit a bit cold early in the morning!