After I did the Valentine Half Marathon last year, Geth was keen to do the couples’ relay, which is part of the same event. It’s a 10k relay so each partner runs 5k. We are absolutely not in 5k PB shape at the moment due to too many marathon and ultra training blocks back to back (plus, you know, winter), but were excited to give it a go.
It’s a Run Nation event, and Run Nation events are always a bit chaotic. It was very unclear from the pre-race and on-the-day communication whether the first leg relay runners (me in our case) were supposed to start with the main 10k wave or not (we finally had confirmation that we were about 10 seconds before the race started). During the whole of my leg, I had no idea whether I was supposed to run into the finish funnel at the end or back up to the start line. It turned out to be the latter, but it wasn’t clear what to do there either; Geth and I both ran over it sort-of-together in order to ‘pass the baton’, and I went over to the finish to grab my medal and goodies and then to wait by the funnel, counting relay numbers.
We both did well for our current running fitness – I did about 24 minutes, which I hadn’t expected to be close to, and Geth about 22:30 – so we were really happy. The results have been a bit bumpy, error-prone and delayed since Sunday, but at the moment it looks like we finished in 46:41 overall, 11th place out of 19. It was a fairly fast field so I’m pleased with that! Looking forward to finding out my individual split, hopefully later today.
It was a lovely morning out, with lots of other Benchies running in the event or supporting, and it was really nice to do something different and get a faster race done in the middle of all this slower long-distance stuff. Excited for my shorter races in the spring post-ultra now!