It was fair to say that training didn't exactly go as planned either. After too much running in a short space of time I hurt my knee and had to have about a week off and Nikki was just too busy. So when we showed up at the train station on Saturday morning to go to Liverpool, we weren't feeling terribly confident. To make matters worse, Nikki forgot her young person's railcard and had an argument with the ticket collector but somehow managed to not get kicked off the train.
Nikki's friend Julia was there to meet us in Liverpool and we filled in the Saturday afternoon wandering around amoungst the bustling Liverpudlians. After a hefty home cooked pasta meal it was off to bed early in anticipation of the big day ahead.
Julia performed brilliantly as driver and navigator on the 2 hour drive to the Isle of Anglesey located in the far NW corner of Wales. We arrived with plenty of time to get organised and warm up and get nervous. Finally it was time to go - my aim was to go under 3 hours to qualify for London and Nikki's time to beat was 3hrs 45 (but due to lack of training she was just hoping to finish).
There isn't much to write about the race, except that there were far more hills than expected, it certainly wasn't a flat race. I was well ahead of my time limit at the half way mark but as the hills strated to take their toll I started to sieze up and slow down. The last mile and a half was all uphill and the feeling crossing the finish line in 5th place with 2 minutes to spare before the magical 3 hour mark was sheer relief.
As for Nikki, she had eaten too many carbo shots and was sick half way through the race. Julia and I drove back to offer her support and watched her power home over the last couple of miles, looking surprisingly fresh for someone who had clearly had a tough day out. She didn't make her time but did extremely well to finish.
Meanwhile, Julia had got 2nd female in the 10 k race so it was a reasonably good day out on the roads of Wales.
Traffic back to Liverpool was terrible so it was a mad dash to the train station (and when I say a mad dash I mean hobble). We didn't arrive back in London until 11:30 and the last tube I tried to catch had stopped running so it was a slow walk home at midnight to cap off a long day. Needless to say, I didn't get a lot done at work on Monday.
The photo below is of the three of us after the race.
