Last Saturday I ran my very first 10km race in Clumber Park for Cancer Research. I have been training since February and so it was incredibly strange to find myself on the morning of the day I have been quite literally running towards for months. Although it is not a 'race' of the strictest sense, and people are welcomed to run, jog, walk, hop or skip their way around there is a wonderful feeling of being in it together for charity. It was a rather odd experience in all, as I certainly wasn't expecting the terrain to be quite so 'cross-country' and for the vast majority of the distance we were running in between the trees and over muddy puddles. For a seasonsed pavement runner like myself it did come as a bit of a shock but I think it was quite lovely at the time to be so surrounded by nature. I say 'I think' because when I try to remember the hour I spent in this fashion I can't seem to recall very much of it, it was as if I was on auto pilot and this is something I have never experienced whilst running before. It will certainly be interesting in the future to see if I can tap into this oddly detached state as I think it is rather helpful. When you aren't thinking about the blisters angrily forming on the bottoms of your feet you really can just go, and go, and go! And go I did, though the time on the official clock said 64 minutes, my own nikeplus pedometer informed me I ran the 10km in 58 minutes, so I'll take my time as being somewhere in between this, and so I am very very pleased!
The only thing now is, at the end of University, and the end of my race, I feel like I have jumped another hurdle I set up for myself into an ultimately blank and illdefined space. What am I supposed to be doing now? Looking for a job? Crossing my fingers? Being "productive"? It is the end, but not quite the end, and there are no Wildian one liners about this very peculiar time in my life.
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