Chasing Barbie

Wow what a weekend.

I just completed the Moonwalk 2010 for Breast cancer awareness. It has come round so quickly. It seems like only a couple of months ago I was signing up for it.

I must admit walking would not be my ideal choice of exercise. It’s ok in groups, with friends etc but walking on my own was soooo boring. Hence the lack of training!

I had my bra and kit ready though and had some lovely trainers to go with my outfit but made a school boy error of forgetting one!!!

The bra is supposed to be cupcakes and the skirt had cupcakes on it.

Luckily my mate and her husband have the same size trainer so I nicked Richards! Thanks love!!

I got some much needed advice from a fellow Kenya cycler, Jackie and thanks to her I was more prepared.

I have been training since January for other events so it wasn’t quite as bad I it could have been! The atmosphere was great and there were thousands of people there (lots more toilets needed!!).

I had to be in the Moonwalk ‘village’ (large pink tent surrounded by a metal fence) by 21.30 so had to hang about a bit before the start. It was bloomin’ freezing but the space blankets and plastic rain macs helped. The weather was great though and I was very thankful it didn’t rain!

The food was also rather nice. The whole event was extremely well organised.

I set off in the second group around ten to midnight. The first few miles through Edinburgh city and in the dark through Hollyrood Park, seemed to just fly by.

It didn’t even really get dark. I’m used to staying up all night so felt fine being awake. After a few miles I plugged in my head phones and kept up a good pace.

By mile 13 I started to feel a bit tired and was surviving on energizing bars and glucose shots (YUK). There was plenty of water handed out on the night so never had to carry too much.

But the loo thing was a problem. We weren’t supposed to pee anywhere other than the loos but it put a good 3/4 of an hour on my time in the end. I just wanted to pee and move on. Mind you whilst waiting to pee I saw Lorraine Kelly! Woo

After mile 13 it got really hard work and miles seemed to stretch out but the sun rising over the sea was just gorgeous and worth the pain.

My feet felt fine, it was my hips and knees that hurt.

I was needing the loo again and as luck would have it I nipped into a public loo and got straight in no queuing.

The bad thing about breaking was that you had to try and over take all the people you had spent the last few miles overtaking!  Even stopping to sort out a foot, saw loads of people speeding past I had already passed before.

One particular girl who was skinny as and speeding on kept passing me so I endeavoured to catch her. And did, somehow. Then She would be in front again! By mile 20 i gave up trying and no matter how hard I willed my legs to go faster they wouldn’t and managed to finish in just under 8 hours.

Next year I’ll be faster!!!!

I feel ok now and raring to go but we’ll see what I feel like tomorrow. Post exercise fatigue usually skips a day!

Thanks to Rich Broadley for the trainers, Trude and Rich for putting us up, Bruce for driving me there, meeting me and bringing much needed coffee!!

Thanks to the organisers and the poor volunteers who had to clean up after the lazy buggers who threw their rubbish everywhere!!!