For the second day in a row I went without my weekend lie in and was up early for a race.  Yes this is very unusual, and new Juneathon participants might be right in  thinking that I’m showing off and pretending I’m the sort of person who jumps out of bed early every Saturday and Sunday and pops off to run a quick race.  Don’t worry it won’t last long.  It’s just the coincidence of Juneathon starting at a weekend and me actually getting organised for its start.  Normal service will be resumed sooner than you think.

A lot of people were out for the Regents Park 10K today, it looked like twice the number of people than I’ve seen for the winter races.  There must be lots of runners who are even more fair-weather than me.  Alma and I just about managed to get through collecting our race packs, dropping off our bags and the loo queue to join the start with seconds to spare.  It wasn’t however too busy on the course and some of the paths up by the Zoo have been resurfaced and widened since I last  ran this race .

I started the first of the 3 laps at the same sort of pace as my 10K last week,  overtaking people as I moved up the field.  By the second lap my pace was dropping.  I was too hot, my legs were feeling less than fresh, I wanted my lie in and I was hungry. (Excuses already, just what Juneathon is really all about!)  I  had a chat with a guy, who had obviously not read the race description, and asked if he really had to run 3 laps.  I congratulated the lapping front-runners and thought about pushing myself to correct my falling pace as people began to pass me, but I couldn’t be bothered.   I ran past the Zoo for the second time and saw a camel. I heard a Lion roaring, I think he was telling me to move my butt a bit faster but he was behind bars so I didn’t bother.

On my third and final lap my pace dropped further to my default ‘just run’ pace and more people overtook me than I passed.  I had a conversation with (I think it was) the same guy again, who was trying to remember how many times he’d  ‘passed Go’ and ‘was it all over yet?’  I explained that as long as he’d not stopped and had been running the whole time at his current pace he could stop in one kilometer.  I also told him if he sped up he’d beat me, so he did (such a gentleman).

In the final 400m I looked at my watch and realised I was in danger of finishing over 55mins so I finally picked it up and then, encouraged by the organiser, yelling ‘Sprint Finish!’ and ‘Race!’ through a loud hailer, my body stopped complaining and I ‘wellied it’ down the last 200 meters overtaking a number of people.

Not a brilliant race for me today, but 6.18 miles run (in 54.40) for Juneathon day 2 and a fantastic breakfast of poached eggs hoovered down, all before 11.30am.