Tottenham Marshes 5 race report

I decide to introduce Shaun to my race preparation regime by taking him to the pub and getting him pissed but he’s already a tad confused on the way as instead of getting mugged, all he’s seen is greenery so I take him past the house round the corner where a man got murdered so he gets to experience some real East London stuff and we take the scenic route to the pub to see the hypnotist and although we do actually see the hypnotist (we decide it was the fat bloke re-arranging the chairs before settling down to a plate of chips), we decide to leg it out of the pub in search of food and we get a taxi to the pizza place and our driver decides to give Shaun another taster of East London life by getting seriously road raged up and nearly getting us killed 100 yards before our destination but we manage to get out of the car unharmed and go and eat the nicest garlic bread ever that the man in the restaurant has made especially for me as I’m on Veganthon and am having no dairy and I must say restaurants are far more accommodating to vegans than they are to vegetarians if you ask them nicely and I’m so stuffed of the nicest garlic bread in the world I can’t eat my main course although Shaun happily tucks into his creamy mushroom thing that he taunts me with just like Tracey taunting me with wine when we’re out and then we go to the pub next door which looks like the housewares department bit of British Home Stores and we leave there some time around midnight and decide to walk the 1.5 miles home and four hours later we’re deciding to get up and walk another 2.5 miles to the race and we walk down in the boiling sun although the boiling sun soon runs out and as we’re waiting for the race to start it starts to rain and it’s fucking freezing and Shaun is looking smug in his long sleeve t-shirt while I shiver in my short sleeve one and he won’t give me his long sleeve t-shirt due to him not wanting to stand around in the marshes topless and we watch the kids go off for their fun run and they finish really quickly and we laugh at the ginger kid who is wearing blue shorts and a blue t-shirt and I think orange and blue is a really bad combination and eventually our race starts and I say to Shaun he can just scoot off if he wants but he says he wants to run with me and I reckon that’s just an excuse for doing a crap time due to consuming lots of beer and fatty food and only a few hours’ sleep and then we’re running round and I think he’s trying to kill me as we’re going faster than I’m used to although Shaun looks like he’s running in slow motion and I’m huffing and puffing and think I’m going to die soon and he keeps saying things like we’ll pick up speed in the third mile and I’m thinking you’re on your own mate, you can pick up the speed all you like, I’m just going to plod along here at the back and then over the river we can see Superman and Shaun says oh shit I’m going to be beaten by Superman and I say can you catch him up? and he says probably so I say off you go then but my cunning plan for him to bugger off and let me have a sit down is thwarted as he says no, I’m going to stay with you and so I have to keep going and we keep going and we get to mile 4 and he says right we’re going to go for it in the last mile and I’m thinking yes Shaun you’re very funny and we’re in a strong wind and it feels like I’m going backwards and we get round the corner into the last stretch and Shaun’s saying come on last bit we can do this and we’re going to break the 50 minutes we’ve got three minutes and I say we’re not going to make it, are you going to be pissed off? and he says no but come on and he’s rambling on about something and I say shut up Shaun and I can see the finish line and I look at my Garmin and I think fuck, maybe I can make it after all and we speed up and I get to the finish line with a huge grin on my face as I smash my PB.  Smart.

Racing bling

Today’s route

Splits

Stats
Distance: 4.99 miles
Time: 49:07
Pace: 9:51
Calories: 498
Pints: lots
Hypnotists: 1
Hours sleep: 4
Ginger kids: 1
PBs: 1