Whenever my brother visits from the North (land of pies) he always comments on how many more uncomfortably large people he sees here in Wiltshire compared with at home. I’ve lived here for too long to notice either way, but I think I might have found the reason why. My brother was popping over today with my Mum and Dad for a quick cup of tea, and I realised I didn’t have any cake or nice biscuits to offer. Fortunately our local pub has the loveliest owners and they happily agreed to package me up what was basically a takeaway cream tea. They even popped the scones into the oven so they were warm and included cartons of jam and cream. These were delicious, but what was amazing was the scones were as big as my head.* I’m thinking maybe this explains the size of people in Wiltshire?!
After such an enormous elevenses I couldn’t manage my lunch until about 4pm, but this was perfect pre-race food timing so actually worked out very well. I then headed out to the first in this year’s series of the Heddington 5K races. These races are quite informal, you can only enter on the night, you park and finish opposite a pub, they have chip timing and only £3. Last night was full of club runners because it’s basically a downhill, PB course. At one time this would have been intimidating, but for the first time ever I too was a club runner, proudly sporting my (borrowed) Chippenham Harriers shirt. ** It was so different to my usual race experiences to be with a big group of people, and to have lots of runners to chat to both before and after the race. *** It was also a novelty to hear people shout “go Chippenham!” and realise they were shouting at me!
A scary downhill charge of a start**** led to a fast race and a new 5k PB of 25:27. There are two more races in this series so with a warm up, and less wind on the night, my goal of going sub-25 looks like it could be achievable. I think eating a pre-race scone-as-big-as-my-head is going on my list of ideal race prep as this was obviously what made the difference.
Whilst I’m talking about weight, a top tip. If you have any concerns about your own size, hide them by making your brother look like he’s heavier than he actually is by ‘helping’ with the scale.
*There is no photographic evidence of this because I didn’t want to let the scones go cold.
**Thank you for the loan of the shirt, Lucy!
***To quote Luna Lovegood “It was like having friends” 😉
**** I’ve never had a mile split beginning with a 7 before which is amazing
