Challenge Accepted!

When I first realised I had to do a 42k training run to prepare for my first 50k race I'm not going to lie... it was a bit confronting.

But all the programs I'd looked at all had a longest run of this distance so there was really no getting out of it. I channeled Barney Stinson... "Challenge.. Accepted!"

Today was the day of the 42k training run, but I wasn't the only one that accepted a challenge.

KKB will be my support crew for Kurrawa2Duranbah and he ably stocked me up with drinks on my most recent long run.

He was otherwise occupied today though so I put the challenge out on Facebook to find someone to meet me at the halfway mark to ply me with Gatorade and Coke and replenish my water.

I was overwhelmed with the response. (Really. I had a little tear in my eye reading the offers of help and wishes that others could be there to hand me a cup of water.)

I ended up with three drink suppliers - Steve, Gabe and Andrew. The first drink stop was "sponsored" by Karla, Cherie and Anne-Marie.

And like all marathon runners of a certain standard, I also ended up with a pacemaker for about 12ks - Carrie, who started in the same beginners triathlon squad with me ten years ago. We hadn't seen each other for ages. It was great to have the time for a good chat as we ran through our old stomping grounds - the Uni and Coro Drive.

(OK so even though Garmin tells me that today's run was my marathon personal record, I don't think I quite qualify for a pacemaker.)

I reasonably felt good for almost all of the run, though I know my pace flagged over the last five or six kilometres. It was hot today. I'm sure that's part of it. But race day will probably be hot too.

I kept telling myself that training is meant to be hard, and race day is the payoff, but I have to admit that today kind of felt like race day with my friends accepting my challenge and turning up to help.