So, let's start with the race, as that was the reason behind our trip to groovy Shanghai, and yes, two of my three readers (hello you two!) have said that you are looking forward to the race recap! So I hope you haven't forgotten me - we had very poor internet connection where we were staying, hence my disappearance from here for a few days. Well, it started off pretty much how I'd thought and remembered from last year's race. However with the awesome added bonus of NO rain! Result. Thousands of other runners packed in and queue-jumping to get as close as possible to the starting line actually made it not quite so freezing cold, and they had a warm-up/aerobic session too, which was fun to watch, although I didn't participate with the aim of conserving my energy for the race:
The first 10 or so kilometres were spent dodging thrown away plastic ponchos that were strewn around and trying pass as many people while not tripping up. I was at the 10km mark at 45 minutes. Something went a little wrong around 14km, when for some reason I thought I was at 18km (must have zoned out completely) and I started to pick up the pace a lot (i.e. ran too fast too early). Not sure if this affected my overall result as the end couple of kms were amazingly hard and painful, and the phrase 'running my guts out' kept circulating hey. Kept telling myself the following: "C'mon, what have you been training for?!", "just 2 little kilometres more then you can stop, keep going", and "we can do these hard things!". I saw Husband at the finish line and attempted a wave, which is why I look a little bit strange here: