Badly done...

(still channelling Mr Knightley from Emma!)

So - Friday night, steak night. Didn't drink. Only had veggies all day. Had a massive 12oz steak, a few chips, more veggies, and some bearnaise sauce.

Saturday - day in France. Ate a pastry. And a Flammekeuche (in my defence the salads all had cheese or foie gras in them!). And a Gaufre Bruxellois. Got home and had a globe artichoke and bread roll for dinner. And some digestives. And some Dulche de Leche.

Sunday - Race Day (will cover the actual race later!). Nothing to eat before I ran (makes me very nauseous!). Got home. Had bowl of porridge and hot chocolate (low fat). Watched t.v. for the rest of the day, very lazy. Had more digestives, more dulce de leche, and some dried cranberries. For dinner had butternut squash soup (no points) with some kalonji (black onion seed), and sauteed shallots and garlic. More dried cranberries.

So, not great, but not too overeaty, and with gym tonight, line dancing tomorrow and gym on Wednesday, I'm hoping for a loss.

So - the race. Worst. Race. Ever.

It was chucking it down with rain, so I was soaked through before the race even started. Only just made it in time as well, and had to run part of the way there. Race was slow - slowest time ever, 1h 6m. My ipod shuffle was cr@p - the headphones and my ears were waterlogged so I could barely hear it, and then about half way around it got stuck in a loop on the same song, so I turned if off and on again, and it didn't play at all! So I had to run for half an hour or so, listening to my own thoughts.

I was slow. I got lapped, first by the fastest runners, girls and boys. I half expected my race buddies (who were WAAYY ahead) to lap me as well. I cracked jokes with the marshals (it was three laps, so I passed the 9k and Finish lines 3 times...).

I was overtaken by runners behind me. I was overtaken by old men. I was overtaken by walker/runners. I was overtaken by heavily pregnant women who were waddling faster than I was running (okay, so that's not true, but it felt like it).

I did manage a half hearted sprint finish. I made my excuses and headed home. Freezing cold, soaked to the bone, discovered my gym bag is not waterproof, well, not to the torrential rain I was walking in!

I got home 90mins later, cold wet, tired, headachey, and burst into tears when I walked in the front door because my wonderful Hubby had cleaned the house from top to bottom, so that all I needed to do for the rest of the day was do a load of washing and put my feet up!

After a long hot shower, I felt more human again. And warm. And dry. The power of this is not to be underestimated!

I said to the girls "never again", but actually, it's made me want to get back into training so that I can run some half marathons again next year. When it's not raining.