Are you planning to wear that medal to bed?

Yesterday I completed my first 10k run. Conditions were far from ideal. It was cold, rainy, windy, a predominantly uphill course (!) and, since much of it was on grass, a complete mud bath.

As mentioned previously, I ran it with my step son who, as promised, had done absolutely no training but was confident that he could complete the course in less than an hour; whearas I was aiming for a sedate 1hour 5 mins.

Step son set off like a rat out of a trap. I wish I could say that he paid the price for his early speed by not being able to maintain it and that my steady tortoise-like approach won through, enabling me to beat him and teach him a valuable lesson about how slow and steady wins the race. But actually the next time I saw him he was waiting for me at the finish line!!

But I'm getting ahead of myself. The first part of the race was uphill which was hard, but not as hard as the next part which was slighly more uphill. By the time I got to the 2k marker I was ready to give up. In fact, it was only the slight glimmer of hope that if I kept running I might pass Step son panting on the verge that kept my leaden legs moving.

Despite being surrounded by the beautiful Kent countryside, I spend most of the time looking at my feet, trying to avoid the numerous puddles or getting caught in the increasingly slippery mud. My fellow runners all seemed very professional, although I was passed at one point by a very tall man dressed in womens clothes. Bizarre!

Thankfully, my second wind kicked in around the halfway point and I started to enjoy it - in a twisted sort of way. Unfortunately, since the course was twice round a 5k loop, I had to negotiate the hilly bit again. By this point it was so muddy and slippery that it had taken on bushtucker trial-like proportions and it was only possible to pick my way up it gingerly for fear of falling on my face. But never mind because once I got to the top it was only 3k to home!

Everyone seemed to pick up the pace for the last bit of the race. There was one last downward slope to negotiate and then it was about a 200 metre straight run (could have been more or less - I'm rubbish at distance!) to the finish. I heard my daughter shouting me on before I saw her and it was a real boost to have her and my Mum and Dad at the finish line (which I eventually crossed in 1 hour, 1 minute and 50 seconds).

Step son was extremely gracious in victory (he did it in 55 minutes and 7 seconds) and we enjoyed comparing notes on the way back to meet up with my husband, who had been designated driver and babysitter for the morning. I'm sure he must have been delighted to have such damp, muddy and, in some cases, sweaty passengers in his car but he gamely listened to my blow by blow account of the race all the way home. I couldn't help but notice that the 3 year old was asleep before we left the car park though!