River Thames Half Marathon - UK.

I am writing this post almost two weeks after the race and that is not fear.
This is the first Race my wife and I are running on this Country, so I think it deserve to write something about this wonderful experience.
Things started around 6am on October 29, 2017. We woke up a bit lazy but exciting. You know it was our first race on a country that we just landed few months ago. Any way. We made our way to the race which wasn’t far away, just about 25 minutes driving. We got there, found a parking lot which was easy and then we just followed the other runners to the starting line. Everything was easy. We had to pick up the package. There were a lot of people on queue but it was quick.
As you can image been with my wife, a mandatory photo session must happen, so yes, we went through that. Picture here, picture there, take the picture again, I don’t like this one, let's take it again and… finally Done. I just got few minutes for short warm up and then heading to starting line.
My lovely wife went with me to my assigned corral and then she made her way to her corral. First thing we noticed different was that there was not hymn before the started shot.
As usual, the beginning of the race was full of anxious runners trying to pass everyone but sooner everybody got its own pace and then things got quite more organized. in the First few miles I was feeling strong and I was trying to keep a pace quite out of my usual comfort zone. You know, I just wanted to get a new PR. But sooner than I expected I started to feel like things were not that easy so I had to slow down a bit and get into my comfort zone again. Along the way I followed some runners and some of them followed me and that was nice, that is what make races interesting and wonderful. The best part of race was when I heard a very well knowing voice coming from somewhere saying “Vamos Flaco”. Yeah that was my wife and that really helped me a lot, she is an amazing and strong runner and she knows exactly what is the feeling when you are in the last few miles. One mile behind the other I made my way to the finish line and everything was nice, my only complaint was about water stations that were like every three miles and the last one was about 4 miles away from the finish line. Weather was just perfect (around 13˚C) and yes, I managed to cross the finish line in a decent time, of course I could not get new PR, but that’s fine. I know it doesn’t happen to often, but is always good to try.
But let me tell you the best part of the day. Few minutes after I crossed the finish line, my wife made her way to the finish line as well and guess what? She got new PR. She managed to improve her time by 4 minutes, so if you are a runner you know what we are talking about. That really made me so happy and proud of her. As per her talk she felt strong pretty much the whole race except for the last few miles but, even thought she was felling some pain she finished and crossed the finish line with a strong spring, that was awesome and that really make the day unforgettable.
As usual second photo session came in. Again, picture here, picture there and hurry up, our kids were alone at home and our daughter had a football game in the afternoon. That was it, one more for our races history and the first one in UK, for sure a lot more to come.
Bye

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