"Just run YOUR race."

On Sunday morning, I completed the ASICS British London 10K Run 2010, raising funds for Diabetes UK, a charity that is close to my heart.  I was pretty nervous before we headed out the door, as it's my first road race (I've only previously done Cancer Research UK's "Race for Life" 5K runs, which take place in parks and other scenic locations!) and I knew there'd be a lot of people.  My greatest fear was that I would have to walk part of the race due to the heat or the pain in my foot (which conveniently decided to hurt - a lot - before I left the house).  Though John doesn't regularly participate in road runs because of his bad knees, he does run often and can complete a 10K in an easy 45 minutes, without any preparation, to my jealousy.  His words of advice to me before I started off were, "Just run YOUR race."  And those words stuck with me throughout.  Even though I wanted to complete the run in less than an hour, I wasn't going to give myself too hard of a time over it if I didn't manage it.  So when my result of 1 hour, 4 minutes, 18 seconds came up, I was disappointed, but not too beat up about it.

The day itself was fabulous and had a great atmosphere - I met three runners standing behind me at the start who were also supporting Diabetes UK.  Turns out all three of them have diabetes and were running with insulin pumps and liquid glucose - truly inspirational.  It put all of the "issues" and "problems" I've been dealing with this week into perspective.

Afterwards, I met up with John, who had been patiently waiting for me (and snapping photos, of course!) and we went off for a nice celebratory birthday lunch for Natalie and her boyfriend Glen near Mile End.  The results looked like this:

It's not too late to sponsor me if you'd still like to ... please send an email to the email address on the right, and I'll send you the link to my sponsorship page.