There’s a strange alchemy to running a good race. It’s a combination of the right amount of training, rest, tapering, decent trainers… but even with all of that, it seems that sometimes running is just unfairly difficult. Sadly, this was the case for me at the Perkins Great Eastern Run.
I’d signed up months ago, after conquering 10K comfortably. Seeing as this half-marathon is in my adopted hometown of Peterborough (a happily flat city) it made sense. After all, I’d have lots of support and could easily crawl back home afterwards. I also decided to support a local charity – the Peterborough Rape Crisis Care Group (peterboroughrapecrisis.co.uk) – which does amazing work with survivors in the area. I was able to raise £600 – a thought which got me through some difficult miles. And boy, were there plenty of those.