Race: Tatton Park 10k
Distance: 10km
Date: 10th February 2018
Supporting Runners: Nanci Henderson & Jemma Love
Fundraising to date: £1,600
Finishing Time: 00:57:43

Hip hip hooray, a third of the way! 🎉

It’s Saturday morning (just) and I am back home after getting up and running 10km in the wind and icy rain for race number TEN. Feeling pretty damn good. Jemma joined me again for the second time in 30for30. Jemma has booked on to that many of the upcoming races, she may as well be doing her own 20for30 challenge 😂

We are working our way up to something pretty huge (watch this space) so have upped the training and running together. I am just as invested in her times as I am mine, and I am buzzing that she got her first 10k race time to under an hour this morn!

I also had another old face join us. At the end of last year, Nanci sent me a message and offered to do a run as part of the challenge. I haven’t seen Nanci since college days, which seems like forever ago. This is what I wanted the challenge to be about – to see old faces during new races and encourage other people to run too, to help spread the word and raise awareness for better mental health.

As it turns out, Nanci didn’t really need any encouragement to run as she runs more than I do, and when she told me her 10k PB was 46mins, my typical panic of being too slow arose and I didn’t want to hold her back. Damn it, I should have remembered she was always really good at P.E.

Nanci carb loading on Friday night 

It all worked out fine though. After arriving 20mins early, getting our race numbers and sitting in Jemma’s car moaning about how cold it was whilst listening to a bit of Ellie Golding (on the radio..). Discussing mine and Jemma’s self-diagnosed ‘Reynaud’s disease’ and figuring out if our hands would make it through the blustery conditions 🙄 ..

We set off towards the back of the pack and began our journey running head on into the wind and rain. We ran at a nice pace, discussing what we were planning to have for tea that night (curry for anyone that is interested). 

It was an ‘out and back’ style race so we saw all of the speedy mcspeeders on their way back to the finish when we were just hitting the 5k mark and longed to be them…

Once we hit the top, we turned round and enjoyed a steady downhill to the end where we all finished on our goal of under 1hour.

Tatton 10k finishers

We grabbed our free flapjacks, had our quick hugs & said our well done’s and quickly escaped to the warmth of the cars, feeling really proud of ourselves.

Massive thanks to Jemma and Nanci for joining me on race number 10 – this one would have been disgusting on my own.

It was great to see Nanci again after all these years and look forward to enrolling her in some more.

We also missed an additional runner this morn 😢 Get well soon Sophie Brooks! I am sure after reading this you will be secretly buzzing you sat this one out.

Also, no cheerleaders as they wished to spend Saturday morn in bed. Who can blame them?!

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In other 30for30 news…. This week, I signed up for a 5k dog jog with Mr Chips(!!) in the Summer. He is really excited and I am sure that blog post will be an entertaining one.

Also, don’t forget you can sign up for our very own 30for30 5k and 10k fun run, taking place on 29th April, here.