Beaten by a train

I was actually beaten by two trains and a lot of people- but it was such a fun day and I am absolutely exhausted

I got up too early and took Bella for her walk before getting ready and heading to Ringwood Train Station. I had a little sara-time in the car, trying to relax, maybe sleep because I was very early. Then I got the train to Belgrave- though before we left a woman who appeared to be a little rough, shabbily dressed and lacking in a little hygiene boarded the train and said "Has anyone got a spare ciggie?? Spare ciggie for me anyone??"- if she had looked a little closer she would have noticed that everyone was wearing a tracksuit and looking a little fitter than your average smoker!

I got to the start area, one trip to the portaloo, got rid of my bag and extra clothing then joined the loo queue again- with Chilliman for company (in the queue, not the loo). I headed off to the start- bumping into Beki, Deege and Blackbox. Gotta love the National Anthem- followed by the start then... Chariots of Fire theme over the PA system causing much laughter.
It was downhill for ages and all that did was make me nervous, to re-arrange Newton's Law- what goes down must go up.
Sure enough it was heading up and up very soon- one hill that took us to nearly half way seemed to go on forever, I hated every second of it.

The locals had all walked to the bottom of their driveways to see us run by but they must have been tired of clapping and shouting encouragement by the time I puffed past because they were just standing there looking solemn at us. Every now and again someone would shout a bit of encouragment but mainly it was odd stares.

Eventually it went down again and finally we were nearly there- the last little bit was just through the park and it was very steep downhill- I said that I preferred the uphill to the people around me but we all knew I was lying.

I managed to make it the finish line in 83:xx I think- averaged 84% with a max heart rate of 92%. My pace was about 6:15 min/km which I was happy about especially considering the hills where I was shuffling along at 7:20 min/km.

I found the ausrun cheer squad- thanks guys and headed to the tavern with Jo to catch up with everyone. Two beers and an enormous plate of wedges later and I was ready for bed. Jo kindly drove me back to my car and I tried to stay awake long enough to get home. I fought off taking a nanna nap for about 45 seconds when I got home- had a kip for an hour and am about to go out for dinner. I might be a very boring dinner companion tonight.