I’ve worked at Leukaemia CARE for nearly two years and met hundreds of runners and given advice to them but personally, I’ve never taken part in a race.
On Sunday that all changed as I took part in the Hydro Active Women's Challenge, a 5km run around Hyde Park. It is organised by the London marathon office and involved 15,000 women running for all sorts of good causes.
I was running with my sister and as we lined up at the start at 11am the nerves kicked in but as we counted down and started to shuffle forwards to the start line the nerves turned to excitement. Waved across the start line by Linda Robson, my sister and I ran hand in hand, shoulder to shoulder. We ran past some of the slower runners and people who were walking the whole distance, waved on by the crowds (and some very bemused tourists!).
As we passed the 1km mark my sister gave me the thumbs up. I grinned with pride. I hate running but here I was one fifth of the way through a race. At about 1.5km I needed to walk for a bit but told my sister to go on ahead of me. I power walked for a while then just after the 2km mark started to run again. At half way there were a lot of crowds and other charities supporting their runners which again was a huge pick up. Just after 3km I saw my brother-in-law who was our one man support team! I high fived him and jogged off around the corner feeling a new life in my legs.
The rest of the course was a mixture of walking and running, I’d developed several blisters on my feet and was feeling quite dehydrated. There was quite a big hill about 500m from the finish which might as well have been Mount Everest but once I was past that I could see the finish. My legs picked up, I started to run and with 100m to go I sprinted to the finish as the announcer said ‘Well done, Alice’ over the loud speaker. As I crossed the finish line I expected to feel jubilant and excited. Actually I felt like I was going to die and nearly crashed straight into Jonathon Davies and a BBC camera crew! I soon recovered, especially as I was handed my finishers medal and goodie bag and the elation kicked in.
I completed the run in 45 minutes which I am SO proud of. I am not a runner. I hate running. I used to cheat at cross country! But I did it and I’m glad I did. I think that it just goes to show that you can do anything if you put your mind to it.
Thank you to everyone who sponsored my sister and me, if anyone else would like to sponsor us you can do it online at www.justgiving.com/aliceandhannah
