As promised, the next instalment of last weekend…Simplyhealth Great Newham 10km! Yep, two races in one weekend…cos I can rest another time! In reality, I couldn’t resist a run, a nice distance run, on home soil in East London, even if my legs were a little jelly-like after the one-mile swim.
After napping pretty much all day after the swim (jeez, swimming makes me sleep!) Ed and I went over to his brother’s (because nope, we still don’t have a kitchen) to refuel and carb up on pesto pasta — that by the way, I made for the first time from scratch. DELISH. The next morning, we made tracks to the Olympic Stadium for the Newham 10km, with our wave starting at 10:30am.
It seems that if you organise a race in East London, the weather will guaranteedly be hotter than the sun, as it has always been for Hackney Half Marathon, and was on Sunday for Newham 10km. Okay, oaky, that’s a slight exaggeration but it was absolutely baking by the time we got running. As ever, I can’t fault the organisation of Great Run events - bag drop, numbers collection, water stations all faultless, making for a great energy at the start line, which was right outside the Olympic Stadium.
We were off! And the course was awesome. Very undulating round the paths of Queen Elizabeth Olympic Path, but picture perfect and very park like. I love it when you can see runners ahead and behind on the other side of the road and this course had so many turns, you got a lot of that.
I thoroughly appreciated the water stations and the nice cold shower at 4km as it really was a scorcher. The last km was awesome, round the Olympic outdoor running track then through the tunnel in to the stadium, heavy house music blaring, making you really want it, then the finish line in the Olympic stadium — on the very track Mo Farah and Usain Bolt ran on. Now that’s pretty special.
THAT WAS ACE. The vibe in the race village at the end was buzzing, everyone loving the sun and bursting with endorphins. Medals round our necks we wandered through Hackney Wick, along the canal to Mason & Company for celebratory pints of Five Points in the sun.
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