Brathay 10in10 Team 2021
Last night I stuck my foot in a bucket of cold water to relieve the angry blister between the ball and big toe on my left foot. I left it swishing around in the water for a good hour while I watch the first half of Moonraker on my laptop. What a great cheesey film from my childhood, Roger Moore was probably my favourite actor to play the “Licenced to kill” British agent role. Later this evening I plan to watch the second half while swishing the foot once again in a bucket of cold water as it seemed to work today in taking a significant amount of the sting from the blister. I’m hoping the blister will calm down over the coming days and not make my 10in10 journey into a living hell.
Anyone that knows me will know I’m not a lover of running in the rain, I’ll do it but avoid it as much as I can during training. Anyhow after two dry days my luck finally ran out today and I woke up this morning to steady heavy rain. Whilst having breakfast and getting ready it eased at times and I hoped it would while we were out running. No such luck, we started in the rain, heavy and persistent, the roads were like rivers in places and within half a mile my feet were completely soaked. One blessing was it was mild and no where near as horrible as back in October when I was last here. For a couple of periods the rain did abate but most of the day was a very soggy affair.
I took the first half of the run easy, to protect the blister from getting worse or tearing and also because I generally just run slower in the horrible rain. Even so the first half of the run seemed to pass quite quickly and I got to half way in 2 hours 9 minutes. Slow for me but nice and comfortable, which is fine for day 3.
I had found a nice running rhythm and slightly picked the pace up second half. This didn’t last too long as I got a stone in my shoe, weirdly it had got into my sock and was drilling it way into the top of my foot underneath my shoe laces. I had to have a pit stop, take my shoe and sock off to remove the irritating stone.
It was lovely to see two wonderful members and friends from the previous 10in10 support team, Aly and Trudi out on the course cheering us all along. At this point I think I should also give a mention to the current support team who were out on the course today in the same horrible conditions looking over us, so a big thanks to Chris, Graham and Michelle.
The blister management worked and the pace picked up second half to give me a finishing time of 4 hour 10 minutes 40 seconds and an eight minute negative split (second half was faster than the first half).
All in all I am pleased with the day, just need to cool the blister this evening for tomorrow and use a bit of Sudocrem on my nether regions due to a bit of wet weather chaffing … say no more ;o)
I’d like to thank Jeff, Chris, Matt, Mike, Miss Angels, Gail and Phil for your wonderful donations and support today.
Just got to add, I watched a deer outside my bedroom window this morning, nature up here is a wonderful thing.
Deer at Brathay Hall
