Bupa London 10k
It's 5am on a May bank holiday Monday and most normal people would probably be tucked up in bed or shivering away in a tent in a field in the New Forest, but not me however, I was, somewhat bleary eyed, and on a train to London to take part in the third Bupa London 10k - what was I thinking?!?
Anyway, I arrive in plenty of time despite the Jubilee line being closed for essential engineering works, do they not realiase that me running this race is just as essential? The race itself does not kick off until 10am, so there I am kicking back on the grass at Green Park, well I would have been had it not been for the obligatory chilly bank holiday, and I check my watch and it's about ten to nine and I think to myself, ah I have plenty of time until the big event and I should probably start thinking about warming up in ten minutes. So, you can imagine my surprise when I hear over the tannoy that they will be calling the runners in the red wave, that's me, to the starting area in about ten minutes.
Well if I wasn't fully awake by then I certainly was now, so up I get and strip down to my shorts and vest, launch my kit bag into the baggage area, make a mad dash for the porta-loos, which were still reasonably intact and came with sufficient amounts of toilet roll too. I began jogging over to the starting area and found my starting wave and got myself ready. Only to realise a few minutes later that the organisers were actually just being ultra-organised and calling everybody over to their starting points unnecessarily early, just so that they could all stand there freezing their what's-it's off!
So off I go to do a proper warm up and by the time the starting gun goes, in another hours time, I am fully prepared! At precisely ten o'clock, thirteen thousand runners took to the streets of London, unaware of the absolute mayhem that they were about to cause for traffic trying to get across the closed Westminster Bridge. They take in sites, such as Big Ben, the London Eye and St Paul's before finishing off with a sprint finish down the Mall with all eyes on Buck House.
After crossing the finish line there's still another few hundred metres to go before I can lay my hands on that all important goody bag containing my well earnt medal and of course the XL t-shirt! The race was organised with military precision and with a new 10k pb of 47m 47s one musn't grumble I suppose, but a tip for the organisers next year. . .on a fairly chilly morning in London is it really that necessary to hand out 500ml bottles of Lucozade, twice, in a 10k road race? I mean what must the Queen have thought of all that rubbish?!
Rachael Openshaw.