- Safety pins are really useful
The lovely lady who gave me my number didn’t mention that there was a large box of them just around the corner, so I spent 5mins trying to peel the timer chip off the back. - Don’t use the runners’ toilets if you can avoid it
They smelt like the toilets at Glastonbury at the end of day 5. - Milton Keynes isn’t as flat as you think
It’s not exactly hilly and I climb more in training, but after mentally preparing for a flat race, those 88 meters of climb were frustrating. - Vaseline is a really good idea
It was only a half marathon, but my shorts were starting to chafe a bit by the end. - Ignore the time on the clock at the finish line.
As I came towards the finish line, I looked up and saw the seconds ticking 54, 55, 56 – a quick burst of “speed” to get me over the line before the minute ticked over. It wasn’t until about 30mins later then I received my official time that I realised that clock had been almost 5 minutes out.
Now for the mandatory embarrassing finish pics.
I finished in 1hr 45min 04secs, you can see the breakdown of my race on this handy results page.