Minchinhampton 10k

As a birthday present to myself, I entered myself and John’s two grandsons, Sidney & Mack,  (7 and 6 yrs old), for Minchinhampton 10k and Mini Minch. I wanted to do this with them for a few years but never got around to it.

I like to celebrate my birthday with a run, which started on 5th with the Running Worldcup 2020, Stratford Parkrun on 7th as it was in support of International Women’s Day and on Sunday the Minch 10k was on International Women’s Day- could not find a better way to celebrate the passing years!!!

I woke about 6am and the trees seemed to be bending over in the wind- not good for a race. Helped with registration, along with Tara and Rich, Stu and Rachael, who all ran as well, along with Sue Lear.

I love doing registration as I get to chat to lots of people and I see lots of familiar faces from different races- I call them my race friends.

As usual the Mini Minch is always a joy to watch and cheer the little ones on as some of them are as young as four years. So good to see their little legs going so fast, lots of runners in the making.

By the time our race stared the sun was out, we set off along the VERY muddy Common but the rest of the way was on the quiet roads of Minchinhampron and Avening. I got into a nice stride with one of my friends from work for about 4k, feeling good. I stopped to see if a young girl, who looked a bit distressed, at the side of the road on her phone, to see if she was ok and is someone coming to collect her. She said yes so I continued, but lost my stride and my friend was way ahead of me and I couldn’t and didn’t catch up with her.

It was great to see Anne-Marie at the bottom of Avening as we gradually start to climb, then Kate and her family manning the water station at the bottom of the hill, which we had to run up! It’s the longest in this race and it continues up for a while. I got up there, just, and was pleased as was still feeling good.

I know the route so tried to break it down in stages, in my head, which helped. Chatted and encouraged a few runners as well on the way, using the slogan This Girl Can, as it was International Women’s Day. We have to support each other whereever we are.

I was so pleased to get to the end to get my medal, I love a race with a medal, and more importantly my chocolate egg!

This is a great race with fantastic atmosphere and a lovely route. Go on you know you want to do it – Iamoutdoors website has a few races that go around our lovely countryside.