A little light swimming: Christchurch Mad March Hare 20

I knew things were going to be tough when at mile 1 we had to run through ankle deep water and my shoes and socks were sodden. I had no idea at this stage just how tough though!

After 16 miles of continuous rain and many many flooded sections of road, we were treated to the ultimate water torture: a stream, or was it a drainage ditch, had burst it banks and the darling little torrent was joyfully bubbling its way down the road. We had to run 400m or what felt more like 800m ankle deep in water. I've run through floods before, but what was quite bizarre this time was that after we emerged heavy footed from the flood, my feet were frozen - I had absolutely no feeling in them at all. Never before have I run with my legs apparently ending at the ankles. They took a mile to thaw out and get the feeling back. Ouch!

While all this was going on we were battling into a very strong headwind. This was tough!

So as you can guess, my finish time wasn't sparkling - but it was never meant to be. The plan was to jog the first 5 miles, which I did, and then push the pace up to marathon effort. I knew from the start though that this was going to be difficult: after a hard week's training of 72 miles with a hard mile reps session on Thursday, 12 miles on Friday, and a weary 6 miles on Saturday, I knew fatigue was going to be a factor. This was only ever supposed to be a training run on the way to London though.

I never managed to get my heart rate above 140bpm: 5bpm below my usual marathon effort. Most of the time my HR was much lower. The result was my pace never got up to my current marathon capabilities. Having said that though I was only 5secs/mile outside my marathon PB pace over the last 15 miles of this race, so the signs are there that I've made good progress since Abingdon (and the illness!).

In the end I crossed the line in 2:39:00 (going by what the marshal shouted), for an average heart rate of 133bpm or 77% of maximum. Not much more than a steady run, despite the effort I put in. I'll take that as a positive.

We got 4 girls across the line, so hopefully have a reasonable team score - well done Amanda, Marilyn and Belinda. The boys suffered somewhat, particularly Neil who only finished a few minutes ahead of me. I suspect their result wasn't what they had hoped for!

That was just about the worst conditions I've raced in, second only to the horizontal hail of the 2004 Stafford 20. Even the torrential rain of the Isle Of Wight Marathon didn't come close. By the end my hands were so cold it took a huge effort to squeeze the safety pins open to take my race number off. Then there was the mud of the playing fields which hosted the finish line and the changing tents. Perhaps next year we might have a ground sheet?

Now don't you just hate it when you walk into the tent to find there's a mad woman in a Victory AC vest shouting "Wasn't that fantastic?! I love conditions like that! Great fun! What a race! Boy I enjoyed that!"? Sorry girls, but there were such dark dejected looks on your faces I felt the mood needed lifting a little. Running - love it!