The Longhorn Part One

About 2.5 weeks after the Belvoir Challenge marathon I spied a contest on PT Mollie's blog for an entry into Swim Bike Run Events inaugural race The Longhorn.  Several of my running club mates had already entered various distances for it and I was having race envy (read: medal envy!) because it looked like a gorgeous venue (trails! longhorn cattle! forest!). I figured might as well enter and see if I might luck out and actually win, the old cliché nothing ventured, nothing gained holds so true. As you have already guessed I did win that entry!

The Longhorn

My big decision was what distance to go for--10k, half marathon, or the full enchilada again, the 26.2.  After a couple of days debating it with my partner about which one I finally opted for the full.  My reasoning was despite the lacklustre performance at Belvoir I still felt fairly strong, there were no overuse injuries and once I got over the soreness of hyper-extending my right leg sliding about in the mud my training was back to normal. I figured that 1 or 2 long runs would keep me in good enough condition to get around the course around 4:15ish.  Of course that was before falling ill starting the day of the Easter 10k at Wollaton Hall and my planned 18-20 miler got cut down to 13.  Instead of doing the smart thing and emailing Amanda at SBR Events and asking if I could transfer to the half marathon I kept thinking I would get better...yeah, that didn't happen. 

The relief! 

The copious amounts of snot and chest congestion meant I ended up taking some heavy duty decongestants of the sort that the pharmacists give you a very STERN warning about before selling to you and one side effect of it is that you get extremely dehydrated. I simply couldn't get enough fluids and electrolytes into my system to counteract it and despite taking the last one on Friday evening the effects continued on through Sunday.  I lined up with the other marathoners fully expecting to get my first DNF (did not finish) which I was surprisingly at ease with.  As a matter of fact I was so ok with this that I managed to get an excellent night's sleep which is something I never do before a race!

This is turning into a far longer post than I intended so time to split it up, most already know the answer to the DNF but for the rest of you...Did I or did I not DNF????  Oh who cares about that, the important stuff is what was the race itself like!