Success!
Wednesday, June 18th, 2008The long-awaited Lisburn 10k was this evening. Four of us ran it for ACTS Ministries – Nikki, Stephen, John and myself. I am pleased to report that we all made it safely round, and got our medals at the end.
It was an interesting experience. I followed my race strategy, which was to put my MP3 player on at the start (a small, light one – not my big clumpety iPod), and ran to the music, as I usually do. It worked pretty well for me. I started to flag a bit coming up to the half-way point, but was revived by knowing I was half-way, and listening to Hey Ya, by Outkast. This set a faster pace, sounds a bit upbeat, and gave me the chance to ponder the lyrics:
“If what they say is ‘nothing lasts forever’
then what makes, then what makes,
then what makes, then what makes
love the exception?”
which I thought was worth some consideration.
Likewise at about the 8km mark when James Morrison sang:
“Well I know that it’s a wonderful world,
but I can’t see it right now
I thought that I was doing well,
but I just want to cry now.”
it didn’t feel completely out of place at that stage in the ordeal.
But at the end, I felt pleased to come in at under an hour (54 mins 34 seconds by my watch – official timings still to come), and to be still able to walk. Never have I been so pleased to hear the Kaiser Chiefs, which was the music for a final fast push to the end. Mind you, it took nearly as long to get out of the car park afterwards as it did to run the race. Anyway, I’ve achieved something unexpected, and I’m pleased. Goodnight world 🙂