May Day Five - 07 May 2007...

Distance: 5 miles

In a time of...
hh:mm:ss
00:33:21

Finishing Position: 52
Number of finishers: 165
Putting me in the top: 31.5%

Since I started running, my attitude to life and health has changed massively. Whilst I admit I still love to treat myself to the occasional chocolate or twelve, I generally eat a lot more healthily and more importantly I exercise. I also do whatever I can to encourage others to be fit and healthy, whether they like it or not!

It was with this in mind that I entered the May Day Five… a small race based in (and around) Memorial Park in Coventry. I was living 10minutes walk from memorial park at the time in my final year at University, and I had managed to encourage two of my housemates to also enter the event. Simon and Paul are great guys, Simon has an unbelievable metabolism that allows him to eat anything he likes without putting on any weight. Paul is a party animal who parties, sleeps and seemingly knows everybody. Simon enjoys his sport and gets involved as much as possible, Paul's not so bothered about sport, and prefers to spend his time partying and sleeping, yet he does take pride in how he looks and could often be found glancing at himself in the mirror.

I'd regularly go out running around the fantastic scenery that Coventry has to offer, and Simon would join me from time to time, and once the three of us had agreed to enter the race, Paul would join us for the shorter runs. Our entries were very late and training time for the two other guys was minimal – I don't think Paul had ran over a mile before, let alone 5! Never-the-less we did what we could with the time available.

Race day came and a long cold walk from the house to the start line allowed us to stretch our legs a little before doing any more warming up. We collected our numbers, pinned them on and waited for the start.

I'd planned from the start to run my own race and meet Simon and Paul at the finish, though I did start the race right at the back with them. Soon after the start I found my way through a decent portion of the crowd and settled into a steady but fast (for me) pace. I stuck at that pace as best I could, picking off runners one by one, and only being overtaken myself very occasionally. I finished with a sprint but didn’t quite manage to pass the guy ahead of me – the nature of the race (i.e. being a very small event) meant there we're any finishing medals, and I missed my finishing time. I jogged back up the course to try and find Simon and Paul

Simon had done well, finishing not too far behind me, a few minutes later Paul came into sight. Paul's main goal was to finish the race, he'd never done this distance before and he was certain that if he were to finish, he's cross the line in last place. Far from it in fact, he was a good distance from last place and managed a fantastic time considering his history of running was virtually non-existent and spanned a period of just over a week! I jogged with him to the finish and we all walked home pleased that we'd done something with our bank holiday morning. We rewarded ourselves with a much deserved full English breakfast – Happy Days!