The Crieff 10km

My neighbour Kim is a very inspiring woman.  She never really took any mat leave with her second baby, continuing to work through as and when her daughter slept and she could get her son excited about a jigsaw puzzle, but she's also been running throughout both her pregnancies and new born baby phases.  So, when she said she was going to do a half marathon and had done a series of 10km races (with her youngest still under 1), I took stock and thought there was no reason why I shouldn't also start running again.  After all, I own a pair of trainers, what's to stop me?!  

So, it was with slight nerves (on my part) that on Sunday we drove to Crieff in Perthshire and all lycra'd up, took part in an incredibly muddy and hilly 10km race where to my delight we were motivated by strapping bag pipers positioned at strategic locations playing haunting pipe music.  Having been on only 2 runs as part of my training (and a long bike ride) and having had a couple of cheeky fags on holiday recently, I wasn't convinced I'd complete the course.  By the 2nd km I was ready to give up, clearly the last runner in the race, no-one behind me even after I'd stopped to stretch for at least 5 minutes.  But I plodded on, and even overtook a couple of people (who then overtook me back later on) and I completed it in just over an hour!  Whoopee woo, I must admit I felt complete euphoria and have got the running bug back.  Forget needing a new pair of jeans, I'm going to get me some new trainers.