Duck Curry

Ok, let’s be honest, Blenheim is a super place to run.

I am just back from a 10km race at Blenheim Palace and I have to say that it was thoroughly enjoyable. I am not talking about how well the race was organised, how beautiful the grounds of the estate looked as the mist burnt off, or how great it felt to be out racing friends on a Sunday morning but what Jana said to me just before the start of the race.

I adore running with Jana as she is always so committed and always digs deep on runs even when perhaps she would rather be home. It is for these reasons that I am under oath not to repeat what she said. However, I can broadly hint that it involved a duck curry and her bowels…and made me laugh so much that I was still giggling at the 7km mark.

The race itself (and no, Trevor, you are wrong, it is always a race….) was beautiful. I was quite a long way off my personal best and crossed the line in a perfectly respectably 53 mins 34 seconds, which was about a second behind Trevor, who had run up behind me with 500m to go, and hung there goading me (he probably will claim that this was encouragement but I think we are back to the old argument of semantics – he says undulating, I say: bugger this, its hilly, let’s go for a pint…)

Aside from being such a pretty run it was also nice to take some time to do something fun as the training is becoming, by necessity, increasingly less fun. Driving home I had to smile again as I thought: well, that was only 10km. I have to do some serious miles next weekend…and then remembered that a year ago the furthest I had ever run was to the local pub for last orders.