Gainsborough 10K

Sunday saw the Gainsborough 10k run. Nicely placed to force me to run a decent distance ahead of the following Sunday which is the Silverstone Half Marathon- I was supposed to have run this last year but was not up to the challenge for obvious reasons!!
It rained. That is all. It was wet and to be honest pretty miserable :(
I was running with a mate- Neil. Well, when I say running with, I mean we set off together: Neil's way faster than me and he's training for the London Marathon at the moment, so whilst I'm way happier on my bike, he's slogging around Lincoln getting the miles in ready for later this year.
With the weather being as it was I couldn't really take my iPod as it would have got waterlogged... yes it was that bad!! And so I ran music-less... listening to the heavy breathing of Darth Vader nearby who sounded like he was going to collapse at any moment! At 3k a couple ran passed discussing the time lapsed so far- this annoyed me as I try to avoid looking at my watch as 'ignorance is bliss' on a 10k.. no I knew how far and how long it had taken... from that I reckoned it was going to take me 1hr 4min-ish. Bugger- another crap time AND it's bloody raining. Bugger :( I plodded on mumbling to myself never again and I'm not doing next week etc etc.
The course would have been lovely if it had been sunny or even just dry. The poor marshals did their best to cheer us on as did the sheep!
I got down to the final 500m and my shoelace decided to undo itself. There was no way I was stopping now so I ran on, quite probably in a very odd fashion in an attempt to dodge the dangling laces.
I COULD NOT BELIEVE MY EYES when I saw the timer... 57mins! No way... really...well happy with that!
So my time was 57m40s which I think is a personal best. I collected my medal and a goody bag with THE best gift inside- a hat... in this weather it was an inspired idea and just what we all needed. So we headed back to the car and home.
Am I doing Silverstone next week... well, it would be rude not to!...but only if it's not pi**ing down!!

Just found this picture on the 'official' photographer's site. Normally I wouldn't 'borrow' someone else's images as it's his living but I'm making an exception for 4 reasons:

1. It shows how crap the weather was
2. He's getting a credit as you can see
3. His work isn't very good- this picture is way underexposed and grainy (even after I've adjusted it in Photoshop!)
4. I look about 90!