1 down, 1 to go

Now after a lot of build up, the Leeds 1/2 Marathon came and went. I was worried that I wouldn't manage to make it around the course, and felt very unfit, but somehow managed it. Training suffered a major setback a few weeks beforehand when Ben found out that he hadn't been offered a place, but still kindly trained with me. The importance of running parts of the course became really apparent - I tried as much as possible to include parts of the course in training routes which helped to keep me mentally prepared for the race. I also tried visualising the entire route the night before the race, so I had some idea how far I had come and how far was left to go at each point. My friend Eloise also signed up for the Leeds 1/2, and it was nice to have someone to run with, even though we lost each other within about 10 seconds of crossing the start line! You can see photos of before and after the race here.