The Way Things Are

I didn't have an exit strategy. Actually that's a lie, I did have a plan to get the paintings back from London but a few spanners got thrown in the works. I'd anticipated that I'd be able to pick the paintings up on Tuesday but I had a text from Happenstance saying that the work HAD to be picked up on Sunday. Fuck, Sunday was the date of the Tenby half marathon. Plan B was that hopefully my lovely mate Bill could pick the paintings up, failing that Plan C involved me driving up to London, picking the paintings up then driving down to Tenby, I really didn't fancy that, largely because it was the first time I'd driven in almost a year and a half and I was nervous enough already. To my eternal relief Bill agreed to pick the paintings up for me, he really is a very lovely man.

So with that off my mind I drove down to Saundersfoot on the Saturday ahead of the race on the Sunday. It was a pretty uneventful journey apart from the last steep twisty turny road to the family caravan. It was the Long Course Weekend, which meant that the half marathon was part of a number of events including a full marathon, swimming and cycling. Into the last stretch of our car journey we passed some cyclists on the narrow country lanes, and there is no two ways about it they were arseholes. It pains me to say this as a cyclist myself, but they were Lycrad up arrogant idiots who made no concession to who else was using the roads, yes they were on a race, but let's face it they were in Pembrokeshire not on the Tour de France.

The Half Marathon started in Pembroke Castle, and learning my lesson from Boston I made sure I was well fuelled up. The reason I was so keen to do the Tenby Half is because the course is so challenging and very picturesque. As I've probably said here before on any race you end up running in an Industrial Estate at some point, but there was none of that with Tenby, just gorgeous country lanes which do undulate. I was a bit worried about the weather the day before cause it was boiling, but it had cooled down a bit for the race. I made sure I took an energy bar with me which I ate at the half way stage which meant that I had the fuel for the final push at the end. I spent the first four miles thinking "How do I feel? Am I okay?" but as soon as I got over the killer hill at mile 8/9 I knew I was going to be okay. I even had enough in the tank for a show boating sprint finish and then some of the amazing chips from Lower Frog Street waited!

The Tenby Half (or the Wales Half Marathon to give it its official name) is a brilliant course and not as difficult as I remembered and amazingly I bounced back very quickly, I felt great the next day! I remember when I did my first half I could barely walk the next day. I'm planning on doing the Cardiff 10k in preparation for hopefully a personal best in this year's Cardiff Half!