Spectating

Yesterday was the first ever Scottish Kilomathon - a 26.2 km race (about 16 miles). I entered this race a few months ago, as the route was likely to go through my home town, and when the route was published, I was excited to see that it would go directly past our house! The race was made up almost entirely of routes which I have run in training, so I thought that would be to my advantage.

Of course this was all long before I hurt my foot, and yesterday I had to resign myself to cheering on friends and encouraging the other runners from the sidelines. It was quite a novelty to be a spectator for once - if I go to a race it's usually because I'm running in it, so I quite enjoyed standing by the road and clapping and shouting to the runners. It wasn't very crowded and in my little village it was very quiet, so a lot of runners smiled, waved back, shouted 'thanks', or even had a little chat.














I dragged them out in the drizzle to keep me company

I think I managed to see most of the people I knew who were running, and I even spotted fellow blogger Fudgey who seemed to be running well! Emma and Robbie did a reasonable job of applauding and cheering people on, until they got bored and started collecting acorns (Robbie) and sitting in puddles of mud (Emma). I was a bit disappointed not to be running, but the next kilomathon is scheduled for next April (to fit in with preparation for the Edinburgh marathon), so I hope I'll be recovered by then to enter that one.














A drinks station at the top of our road!

Meanwhile I've been cycling, and my average speed has gone from about 9.8mph to 10.1mph. I did try to push myself in terms of speed, so it obviously had some effect. After a particularly hilly route on Friday, my thighs were in agony all day Saturday - clearly I hadn't been 'peddling hard enough' before, as Dan commented on my last post! I also managed to squeeze in 8 miles before the kilomathon yesterday - I would have liked to go further, but I had to get back before the roads closed.

In fact living on a race route made me realise how much work goes into staging these things. Signs are put up in advance, people are notified, then traffic cones line the streets, roads are closed off etc - at 8am yesterday the marshalls were at their stations, the St John's Ambulance were out and the drinks were being set up. Later in the afternoon we saw trucks driving past collecting the traffic cones and signs as the roads got back to normal again.

It must take a lot of organising. Next time I run in a race, I'll be more aware and more grateful to the amount of work behind staging the event.