parkrun fresh were #allin24

My first lap of Sunday approached and I sat in the warmth of the food tent thinking of me in the warm, poor Katie in the rain and the fact that we would soon be swapping places. Not very enthused to be honest. So I went to the changeover area to acclimatize. Or so I thought. Instead I ended up having one of the most enjoyable times of the entire day.

Picture the scene. It was half 1ish in the morning. Everyone was sleep deprived. It was hammering it down with rain outside of out little waiting marquee. Everytime someone came back we heard their horror stories telling their team mate what was to come - it did not sound good! We all knew that as soon as the next tired legs came across the finish line any of us could be next. It really banded us together. We were trying to keep spirits up, jokes and songs were flying about and we cheered people in to us. We had people unable to find their friends - one guy especially was shouting for 'Charlotte' and we all joined in till 'Charlotte!!' was being yelled by 50 odd people. It was a great experience.

When the changeover came I started jogging off with a slight fear about how my legs would hold up to running 10k at this point. I had no reason to worry....there was no way runnign 10k was possible in these conditions! It was mental! Parts of the course were an absolute mudbath and even people with trail shoes were slipping over all over the place. Me in my normal trainers had no chance to do anything but slow and steady to keep going, walking where the ground was too ridiculous. I spent the vast majority of the lap chatting to another runner called James which kept us both sane and moving.

As I got back and let Gav have more fun in the rain I got back to camp, woke Michaela (I say woke, she was already awake but I got her moving in terms of getting ready) and took on more fluids and pringles before trying to get some sleep. I manged about an hour when I finally nodded off but it refreshed me like many more hours which confused the hell out of me! But at least the rain had stopped and a beautiful morning had start to rise.

I had one more lap to go in the morning and the conditions under foot were just as bad, if not worse, being likened to an ice rink at points. I was slow again, conditions dictated so and so I couldn't test my body out more. I started chatting to one of the rock stars of the event - a Solo. His name was Matt from Neath near Swansea and he was on his 12th lap. That's 120k by that point. His spirits were still good, he had got a bit of sleep and so we jogged and walked and chatted our way round my final lap. I wouldn't have wanted to have completed that lap in any other fashion.

And so we made it. Our team completed 20 laps, which we thought was a tremendous achievement. All of us completed a longer distance on foot in a single day than we ever had done before. Solos were our heroes as a rule but, for me, the rest of my team pushed them mighty close. The team photo has Ben Beale back left, me in one, Gavin Belsham next to me, Neil Tween far right on the back row, Katie Tween on the left of the two girls and Michaela Joysey on the right. They were all magnificent the entire time, on and off the course and it was a pleasure and an honour to run in their team. Thank you to you all.