How do you sleep?

How do you last the night and keep the dogs at bay?
How do you feel, when you close your eyes and try an drift away?

That's not even about her. It used to be about someone I knew as a kid. Now someone else has the honour. Not worth the dirt from my shoes. A lesson that sometimes your first instincts are the right ones.

Anyhow, moving on.

Had a good week. Very busy, but with some great high points :))) I managed to run in to work from home. You would think that reversing a route would be easy. Not in my head it isn't. But still. I did it.

Gym stuff is going well. Well apart from that mad woman I keep seeing, who really just wants a chat, but I wish she would do it when I have my clothes on :-D

Accidental Friday night drinks again. I used to do that every Friday but have been really good lately, I mustn't do it too often! It makes parkrun hurt. Though this week it wasn't too bad. 21.51 which is decent but second lady because B from Ilford turned up. I have only ever beat her once and that was at 5k but I'm working on it. Oh yes.

Then today was East London half. Got a lift from Andy and Vicky from BRR, so that was painless. And Vicky stood in the bag q for me while I went to the loo. Already fairly long queues I noted, but no matter I got in and got my bag stored. Then it seemed to be a bit of confusion because the 10k should have started but it didn't. Loads of people milling about not sure what to do. The baggage queue was massive by now full of both 10k and half runners. I decided to go loo again, but with 2 minutes to my start I had to leave and get to my pen. The 10k had obviously started now without anyone realising because lots of people in the toilet queue started running that way.

They let the pen in front of mine walk to the start but told us to wait. We waited, and waited and waited a bit more. I now HAD to go to the loo so I darted out to the portaloos and realised whilst I was there that they had set my lot off. Oh well, it's chip timed.

I ran to the start and started my watch as I crossed the line.....alone! I'm not really sure what was going on. Then for a lap round the park. Where both shoelaces came untied at different points. I'm sorry if you were near me. I did swear a lot.

Then out onto the first lap. It was ok. My head was a bit gone right from the start because I had no idea where I was in terms of runners around my speed.....does that make sense? I saw in the distance a dag 88 girl who I knew was slower than me so I made it my target to catch her. I duly did and must have seen here about 6 more times due to the tooing and froing of the course. After 11k you ended up back in the park. I was very very thirsty because I hadn't been able to suss out the water stations, and really wanted to give up but a conversation on twitter the night before meant I couldn't :-D I realised I couldn't suss the stations because mainly there were hardly any marshals on them. Those that were couldn't cope with all the runners so you would go for a bottle and they would give it to someone else! I'm not blaming volunteers but they needed more and they needed to know what to do. 2 of them dropped the bottle before I could grab it. I ended up getting a bottle off a wall where someone had discarded it at one point.

So I did finish, 1.43.44. I should be pleased with that. It's my second fastest half ever, but I just didn't enjoy it. It should have been a fast course, for me it wasn't.

I was well supported though by old and new club mates and after went to meet up with a load of BRR runners in Barking for some tea. I was very hungry but couldn't eat as my stomach was starting to feel bad. I have spent most of the rest of the day either in bed or curled up on the sofa with horrible stomach cramps. I'm assuming it was hydration issues because I had normal breakfast and dinner the night before. Hopefully I have learned some lessons.

1. Double knot your fucking laces you idiot!
2. Look harder for water, stupid.

I've been very pleased to read about friends completing Brighton. Some good PBs, all good efforts :)

I think that's it. I need to go to bed and wake up tomorrow feeling good :)