The "Hill Hater"'s Hilly 20 miler!!

So this week Carolyn was given the task of planning the route for our first 20 miler and she responded with relish!!  Self appointed as team captain, she threw herself into the task with fervour.  She even drove round the route in the car, to check the distance (it must have looked lovely in the car!!)

Friday night we were delivered our motivational text including song of the week clue (more of that later!)

The start time was brought forward to 7.15am (not because of anything to do with running, but so that we could finish in time for breakfast at the Boathouse-I think Carolyn could do a 3.5 hour marathon if the medal was made from a tat tie scone!!!

Unfortunately Sean's bowel movements meant that he was slightly late, much to the teams disgust (that won't happen again!).  They even set off without him, whilst he sorted out his garmin etc.  Suspiciously this meant he needed to do a 6 minute mile for the first mile, in order to catch up (were they trying to take the speed out of his legs for later on?!)

The mood was certainly less jovial than in previous weeks and there was definitely a steely determination about everyone.

Considering Carolyn hates hills, the route was brutal with hills a plenty but everyone dealt with each and everyone with ease-mucho respect all round!!

The civilised team members called into Tesco for a pee stop, although another just dropped her breeks in the garden of a lovely rural cottage.  Apparently the owner called the RSPCA concerned that a beaver was so far away from the canal!!

If the hills weren't tough enough, just as the terrain levelled out the weather turned against us!  Seems like only 10 minutes after Carolyn said "hopefully the wind will die when we hit Kilsyth", the heavens opened and we ran head into a strong wind with the rain horizontal into our faces!! Carolyn however had better ideas and dropped of the pace-not because she was tired, not because she didn't want to talk! No, our team captain chose to seek cover from the wind by running behind Sean's big arse!!

The last mile was ran with the wind finally at our back and a good pace was achieved by all, even by Jim who "hurt everywhere!" and was running/fast walking like he'd shit himself!!.  Most importantly we made BREAKFAST! (which for the record finishes at 11.30 and not 10.45, something our team captain had failed to check!!)

Great effort by all!!! Well done!!

As I type our team captain has just sent us all our well done text and handed over the "armband" to Sandra!
Can she live up to Captain Carolyn-will there be hills, will the distance be right, with she motivate the troops and most importantly will she get us to breakfast!!?