A Half Marathon? I said I'd never do that again...

but ladies are allowed to change their minds.

I'm sitting on the sofa exhausted but happy after having run the Half Marathon at the Street Child Sierra Leone Marathon in Makeni. If you scroll back to June 2012 you'll find this post.  Last year I ran the 5km and said I'd run the half marathon if I was still here in 2013.  Well, you know me, if I commit to something I commit to it, so in January I started running with my friend Heather targeting the half marathon on 26 May.

We met two or three times a week and employed a run and walk strategy - 10 minutes of running followed by 1 minute walking.  Using this pattern we slowly increased our fitness and the distance we were comfortably running. So by the time this morning came we had managed a 2 hour 5 minute training run 2 weeks ago.

So at 4.30am this morning my alarm sounded and the big day began.  I had spent the night with Aoife who kindly made us Weetabix to fuel us for the 13.1 miles ahead.  We popped onto an okada to make it to the start for 5.30am.  The plan was to start as soon as day had broken so that we could run in the coolest part of the day.  In a special moment the President arrived at 6.15am to start the race and to take part in the 5km.  Quite a coup for the organisers.

Here we are ready to go

Aoife and me

Heather and I ready to get started

Heather and I ran together keeping in the main to our pattern.  There were deviations as the miles were well signposted so we aimed to run to the mile marker, walk for a minute and run to next mile marker but did walk early if there was an uphill or keep running if we were cruising downhill. It was lovely to run through the beautiful countryside and villages with the children cheering us on with shouts of "Opoto, Opoto".  There was an unexpected stop as a train from one of the mining companies sped past - a very long train!  A guy who is with Peace Corps and has lived in the are for 2 years who was stopped with us said it was the first train he'd seen in his time here.  Bad Luck.

It must be said that miles 11 and 12 were hard but we kept going and the final mile flew past culminating in a sprint to the  finish line in 2 hours 19mins.  We were dead chuffed as you can tell from these smiles.

Well Done!  Go team us

 The marathon next year?  I don't think so.