Bedford Half Marathon 2012

Day 344 Sunday 9th December 13.1 miles : miles to date 2293.5 Oh dear, it had to happen. For me, the worst race of the year. Not in terms of time, as a 1:29:30 half marathon is semi ok I guess, but I just didn't enjoy it. I just wasn't in the game today and the positive neurotransmitters were just smoking weed or were on holiday. As we all know from earlier posts, neurotransmitters are packaged into synaptic vesicles clustered beneath the membrane in the axon terminal, on the presynaptic side of a synapse. They are released into and diffuse across the synaptic cleft, where they bind to specific receptors in the membrane on the postsynaptic side of the synapse. Yeah, whatever. Mine were in serious grumpy old man mode today. I'm just not in the fast running frame of mind and in truth, I have half an eye on finishing the year streak and three quarters of an eye on the last serious challenge of the year, Hadrian's Wall. I spent the first part of the year running long and slow, the middle part burning it up and now I'm trying to go slow and long. Truth is slow used to be easy and it just isn't anymore. I suspect that last bottle of wine and three double Baileys to round off the night on Friday influenced my two day hangover and general grumpiness, but I woke up this morning thinking I just can't be bothered to hammer it, so I didn't. That having been said, I set off with a runner that earlier in the year, I just wouldn't have thought I would be in the same league, Steven Upton . We stayed together until half way, when my blooming shoe lace came undone. Just stopping for 30 seconds meant I couldn't catch him and I dropped the pace for the middle section. I slowed so badly, that the world and his wife went past me including one bloke who was breathing so hard I thought he was going to have a heart attack. I just didn't have any breathing problems at all, although the 9 miles I did on Thursday was in the legs. My slowest mile was at 8 when I did 7.14 (shocking I know), followed by 7.02, 6.45, 6.38, 6.28 and 6.28. The only reason why I picked it up? Ivor the Engine obviously. The heavy breather was getting on my wick. The best part of the day was seeing my fellow club mates doing so well. Yet another great day out for the mighty AFF! Close on the heels of that, was catching up with my fellow shadow Olympic torch hero's (?) Belinda Bradberry and Adrian Smith. Without question, the highlight of the day