Race for Life

To follow on from my last entry - i went to the health centre on monday morning and actually saw a nurse i've not seen before :-o LOL Unfortunately i was told no i'm still not healed enough to swim :-( When i asked if 10 weeks was a normal amount of time she sort of ummed and ahhed a bit and said it can be *rolleyes*

When i went to work i was being really organised - i did my mileage claim, checked any paperwork that needed doing, emptied my pigeonhole and said goodbye for the end of term - i wasn't intending going back. When i got to my next school i was looking for my mileage book - it wasn't in its normal place, it didn't seem to be in the boot, i couldn't find it in the passenger side of the car so i rang the office - yes i'd left it there!!! That meant i had to go back to Formby after school just to collect it *rolleyes* - what is it they say about the best laid plans .....

Yesterday afternoon i'd planned to leave my car at the Training and Conference Centre basically all afternoon ready for the Race for Life in the evening. Well, because i work half days i got there at about 11.45 - just perfect timing cos all my colleagues were literally on their way out for lunch so i parked my car and got into Sue's car and we headed off to the pub for lunch :-D

We weren't particularly impressed with lunch - especially Helena, she ordered something advertised as "Roasted vegetable baguette with hummous" (or somehing like that), when it came it consisted of a baguette with one baby carrot, one piece of corguette and one grain of something that may have been supposed to represent hummous! She'd got it with chips and salad so she ate most of them but then decided she was going to complain. She said they were very good about it and actually when the manager saw what she'd been presented with he was quite horrified!

When we got back to work the afternoon was spent in rehearsals for Music Alive - of which we've only got one morning this week. I'm supposed to work for Knowsley in the afternoon and Liverpool in the morning but i've swapped that for Thursday so that i can take part in Music Alive :-) It's doubly good cos we're playing a piece of music written when recorders were a very popular instrument and we did have people playing sopranino, descant, treble and tenor but no bass. Sue said she had a bass recorder but they had no-one left to play it, I've got one (which actually belongs to another authority) so for the concerts i'm there for i'll be playing bass and it means we've got the whole consort :-)

After work most people were eager to get away but i wasn't bothered how long they took faffing about cos i was hanging round for the next 3 hours anyway for the Race. I put all my stuff away and then checked with Ian it was ok for me to hang round and play the piano in the dining room - thankfully it was, as i expected it to be.

I settled myself down and did about an hour's practice before i stopped to have my tea. While i was eating my tea i texted Helen to tell her i was a different phone number for the evening - it's a smaller phone which fits into my waist pouch i wear for running. Once i'd had my tea i went to get changed. Once i was changed i was still in the toilets doing my hair and a lady came in and wished me luck - obviously at that point i was wearing my t-shirt with my entry number on so it was obvious what i was ready for. Once i was ready i took my stuff out to the car and actually decided to move my car to a better place in the car park ready for getting away easier.

After i was changed and ready i still had about 40 minutes before i was supposed to be meeting Helen so i went back to the dining room and did some more piano - i did about half an hour of scales - i played the 6th apart scales, the ones i really dislike but at least i was using the time usefully.

We were due to be at the Race starting point at about 6.30 ready for warm ups and stuff so i decided to stroll over at about 6.20. I've been to Knowsley Hall before but i'd forgotten just how long the drive was and it took me about 15 minutes to walk down to the hall. Helen said they'd been intending to leave her house at about 6.10-6.15 so they should've been there but i couldn't see her so i rang her and she said they were just leaving the car park so i stayed put near the entrance to the field so we'd see each other easily.

They arrived about 10 minutes later - Helen, Sue, Mike, James and Emma, and 2 other adults who weren't introduced to me but i think one was Helen and Sue's mum - not sure of the other lady, possibly Mike's mum :-/ We stayed where we were and Helen rang Chris to see where she was - it turned out she was just leaving the car park too ;-D She arrived with us at about 6.55 i think and that was our team complete :-) While we were chatting Sue met someone else she knew and was friendly with so she decided to run with her instead of us.

The people from Century Radio were there leading the entertainment and warm ups. We started off by doing YMCA which i really love so i was getting into it and Helen and Chris were laughing saying they wanted hard hats to guard against being walloped by my arms ;-D ;-D While we were hanging round there were Century Radio people coming round and doing signs for the very little children to wave to cheer on the people they were with so James and Emma each got a sign as did Chris's little girl who was being looked after by her dad.

While we were hanging round the Mayor of Knowsley got up to say hello to us and they did a few shout-outs, Helen had got one for us so we cheered ourselves when they called our names ;-D ;-D There were 2 girls from a health club leading the proper warm ups which was basically aerobics type exercises. They also announced there would be a delay on the start of the Race because there were so many people still trying to get in so if we were to start running we'd collide with the people coming in.

We were split into 2 groups - runners and walkers and we had to go the man holding the appropriate flag. I think it was about 7.40ish when we actually got started. Obviously at the very beginning there were so many of us all squashed together that we couldn't really run properly but once we got going i was surprised at how much Chris was going for it - and she was getting annoyed cos there were people already walking and we were in the running group. At one point i really put my foot in it cos i said to Helen about chris "I thought you said she was slow" so Helen told this to Chris :-$

Helen and i stayed together all the way round but we did lose Chris after a while, she dropped back a bit while we kept going. It was really good fun, we were laughing at the sheep running away from us and a bit further round there were more sheep (or maybe the same ones and we were seeing them from a different direction) and then there were horses - awww. I was telling Helen i'd love to go horse riding and she said she used to as a child when they went on holiday.

Right round the course there were marker posts at each kilometre and then there was a 500m marker post too. Helen and i crossed the finish line together at 35 minutes and 24 seconds :-) As we crossed the finish line there were official people taking pictures so i need to look on the website in the next few days. We stopped and waited for Chris and then we went back to find Helen and Chris's families.

The families both had cameras and Mike had my camera so we got 'team photos' done after the Race ;-D I also suggested we get photos taken of our backs with the labels we'd done ;-D

After that we split up to go back to our respective car parks cos i was parked at the T&CC and they were all parked in the Prescot car park. I knew i had at least another kilometre to go back cos we passed the 1k marker post part-way up the drive so i actually decided to run back :-o LOL After i'd just done the 5k Race :-o LOL Well i would normally do 7 miles on a sunday morning and 5k is only about 3.5 miles so i hadn't done anywhere near my normal amount anyway ;-D

When i got home i discovered i had a blister on the bottom of my foot :-o With all the running i do and i get a blister after 5k :-o I also discovered that my camera mustn't have been working cos there were NO pictures from the Race on it at all - not even the pictures i thought i'd taken before i met them so i can't blame Mike.