800metres catches me unawares!

Last night I decided to arrive at track in time for a gentle warm up with Ewen and to run the 3000m. I arrived at the stands at 6.58pm and was greeted with, "what age group are you?" I told the ladies my age sadly and was surprised at the excited response. 'Yes, a W55 woman - we can form a relay team for the 800m' - oh dear me. They really wanted to run and there was no-one else to help them out, what could I do? Thus it was that I ended up running 3rd spot in the 4 x 800m relay in the W55 age group not knowing that they had set their sights on a record! Oh dear again, having never run a track relay in my life, let alone an 800m I had no idea what was in store. When I took the baton I ran my best but it was hard, I had not warmed up of course having been taken by surprise and the result was that we missed out on the record by 30secs probably my 30secs. However, my team was encouraging and lovely - just happy to have had the opportunity to run and I was not made to feel bad at all, in fact they asked me to join them again which is pretty amazing!! By the time I had returned to the stands I had started coughing and coughing and coughing. I am told that this is a very common occurrence with 800m sprints - in fact there was a lot of coughing coming from my end of the stands. It felt like a dead insect was stuck in my throat and tears were pouring down my face. I just could not stop coughing.

However, 20mins later I was back on the track running in the 3000m as was the original intention. I found it hard and hot and my time was probably a PW (16:05 - average pace 5:20)but hey, hopefully it's all up from here! Look out track, I'll be back!