BolderBoulder

Left: anxiously waiting...

Well the lower altitude ment that I didn't get the 'breathing through a damp sock while having my lungs squeezed' feeling, but I still found it really tough. Andy helped a lot and encouraged me to a PB of 59'33", which is a good minute and a half faster than I managed in training last week. Bolder is a nice town and the course was interesting. There were lots of bands to keep us entertained, including some really bad cheezy guitar groups yelling a lot. The race was really well organised with the start staggered into waves to avoid the chaos of 50,000 people trying to get near the front. Great for us but not so good for the poor trumpeter who had to play a salute every 3 minutes. We didn't managed to start in the same wave as Christine and Angel, but they didn't take too long to overtake us. I wanted to give up near the end, which is a shame because I was too knackered to appreciate the novelty of a stadium finish.

After unsucessfully looking for our friends, we grabbed as much free food as possible and went back to the hotel to shower. After looking forward to it for miles, I couldn't face drinking my free cold can of generic larger, I was just too queezy. Maybe I would have appreciated the novelty of puking in front of a stadium full of people, but thankfully the race finished and I managed to keep my digestive tract sealed.

Left: Andy flying the flag for Norwich infront of the stadium finish. Interestingly, his official time was 1s slower than mine, even though he dragged me around the last 2k. hehehe

When we got back, the event was on TV. We picked a good time to escape- lots of scary memorial day type gushing patriotism was happening, including the playing of that god-aweful 'god bless the USA' song from a year or two ago. Truly cringeworthy. I'm all for showing support for the poor sods who have to get shot at in Iraq every day, but I don't really go for over zelous saccrine patriotism.. It was quite funny though. We watched the start of the women's race from the hotel, then went out to watch the end. The look of pain on some of their faces was crazy- I knew I was right, running ISN'T fun!! I haven't been so close to a professional race before- luckily I managed to remember to lean back away from the barrier with my camera as the lead pack thundered past (if skinny women can thunder).

After it was all over we managed to find our friends and go for the obligatory post race post mortem in the cheesecake factory. It was a well organised event, a nice course and a good place to hang out afterwards. Isn't that what it'll all about?!

Right: Our fan club cheered us on. Oh, alright, they were actually watching the GB professional men's team.