Half Hour Challenge Report by Jane Whitlock
Race report: how far can you run in 30 minutes
As luck would have it, at the time of this virtual race I was down in Lymington, where we look after my father for 1 week in 4. Lymington has the advantage of being a lot flatter than Freeland! On the Saturday morning I woke not feeling very energetic. The previous evening we had made a first attempt at Jamie Oliver’s chicken and mushroom pie and had made significant inroads into it at dinner. Mid-morning, Tony ran his VPR and ‘how far in 30 minutes’ first and came back quite pleased with his run; he has been struggling with an arthritic hip (no, that’s enough sympathy) so just running is a bonus at the moment. By the time I ran, I was feeling a bit less full but still lacking energy. I set off on my newish VPR route. I looked at my watch shortly after starting and was appalled at how slow I was running. So I decided to forget the watch and just try a bit harder. Strangely, this appeared to work because after one lap I did have a quick peek at my watch and thought perhaps I had read it wrong. I managed to run the 5K more than a minute quicker than my recent best VPR. Having done the 5K I just had to keep the pressure up for a couple of more minutes for the ‘how far in 30 minutes’. It’s a very long time since I’ve had to write a race report and I feel honoured that on this occasion it was for a good run (for me). And the moral of the story is, always overeat the night before a ‘race’ and don’t look at your watch until the end.
Jane Whitlock
P.S. Thank you Jackie for delivering the wine. It was delicious. Cheers
