2020 Jen – I did not do much touring on this day for reasons I explain throughout the post. I clearly have learned so much more with travel and most definitely with running.

I got to mark another item off my bucket list by running a race in England. I went into the race with the goal of having fun and soaking in every bit.

The weather did not want to cooperate. From the moment I woke up it rained. No big deal. I’ve run in light rain before.

After huddling under part of a castle I finally moved out into the open, still wearing my jacket mainly to have a dry place for my camera. [2020 Jen – That jacket? Seriously?]

Yes, that is a castle behind me, Warwick Castle to be exact. What a wonderful place to start. Unfortunately I have only one more picture of the castle. I assumed that I would come back to tour in the afternoon.

I started out easy with no time goal in mind. Plus, I pulled my jacket sleeve over my Garmin to keep myself from looking at it.

Within the first km I attempted my first self-portrait while running and did a pretty good job. (At least I think so.) [2020 Jen – I took this running selfie with an actual camera, not a phone where I could turn the camera around and see the screen.]

I even saw Wonder Woman.

As I ran the race I felt stronger as the km went by. (Side note: it was really odd seeing km markers instead of mile markers.) When I checked my garmin stats afterwards I discovered that from mile 3 on I ran negative splits with my fastest mile being the last. The first mile is usually my fastest.

When we finally got close I took the camera out to capture at least part of the magnificent view that greeted us around the next to last corner.

Unfortunately there was water on the lens when I took the picture. I also obviously have a problem keeping pictures straight.

A few meters later we took a left and headed in to the finish.

I finished in just over an hour, much slower than my first 10k but I wasn’t running for time. I felt absolutely ecstatic as I finished the race. I didn’t mind running in the rain. I didn’t mind the slight chill…at first.

Unfortunately, I didn’t arrange a place to meet my host after the race. I actually did not even know what he looked like until I saw him around 12:45 that afternoon. You read that right, 12:45. I stood around in the rain, huddled under an awning and then cooped up in the restored stable. [2020 Jen – I ended up staying with the race director and his wife after emailing prior to planning my trip and asking about lodging options. AirBnb did not yet exist, obviously.]

I didn’t know what kind of food options would be available after the race (none) so I stuck my credit card in my iPod armband before I started the race. I held onto my hot chocolate to warm up.

It helped, temporarily.

I planned to walk around and take pictures while I waited. The rain, which increased in intensity, prevented me from doing that so this is the best picture I got of the castle, the ruins actually.

The stable had a series of displays talking about the history of the castle so it wasn’t a total loss. I did also duck out into the entry way and manage to snap a couple more pictures. (I only uploaded one.)

Finally I met up with my host who took me home so I could clean up and warm up. 

Yes, we did get a finisher’s medal, one of the highlights for me.

By the time I got home, cleaned up and fueled up it was close to 2pm. I felt so tired and had no desire to go back out into the cold and rain so even though I won’t be back in the area for the foreseeable future I knew it was better that I stay and rest up.

In the end it was nice to have a down day to get ready for the second half of the trip.