Lincoln 10k

Lincoln was a low for me, but I think there's good in that. 

Someone noticed my selfie struggles and offered to take a picture of me.

Why Lincoln

Lincoln was on my list of places to visit. When I went to a conference 2 years ago, a speaker from the University of Lincoln showed videos current students had made to give prospective students an idea of what life in the city and University was like.

These videos were an excellent recruitment tool because they convinced me to visit Lincoln. It wasn't a place I had heard of before, but when I saw footage of a jaw-dropping cathedral and a waterfront with boats, I was sold. Mainly because of the boats. I like boats.

The journey there

I was thinking as I got on my first train that surely I wouldn't need to write about the journey because it would all go smoothly and I'd have nothing interesting to say.

Then came the 36 minute delay at Newcastle - a 36 minute delay when I only had 12 minutes to make my connection in Doncaster. Some electrical fault had stopped all southbound trains, and all we heard over the announcements was that the train would be delayed with no estimated time for when we would depart again. 

Once it got past 12 minutes, I realized there was no way I was making my connection, and the next train to Lincoln from Doncaster was 2 hours later. By the time I got to Doncaster, it ended up being a 90 minute wait, and this also meant I would be getting to Lincoln at 4pm instead of 2pm. There went the day.

On the bright side, it looks like I'm entitled to some money back because it was such a long delay. What a great way to save money on these trips.

Special thanks to my sister for keeping me company at Doncaster by unexpectedly calling me just as I got to the waiting room. 

Lincoln in limited time

My Airbnb host very kindly picked me up at the train station, but even so, it wasn't until after 4:30pm that I was able to start going in to town.  

My plan was to head toward the cathedral, just to see the outside of it. This involved walking up Steep Hill, which is the Lincoln equivalent of the Royal Mile. It's also an accurate name as I can confirm it was in fact a steep hill.

Half-timbered steepness.

I got to the cathedral. It was massive. It was beautiful. But of course there was scaffolding.

I suppose the scaffolding situation could have been worse.

It's a canal

Afterward, I headed back down the hill to get to the water and see the boats (the boats!). I say 'the water' because it wasn't until the next day I looked up to see what it's actually called. 

The answer to that is the Fossdyke Navigation, which has led me to learn that 'navigation' is another term for 'canal'. Navigation sounds weird, though, so let's just call it a canal.

The University of Lincoln is right along the canal, so going to see the boats meant walking through the campus.

The train line into Lincoln also runs right through the campus (and the city). I mean right through, not even via an overpass. Instead, there's a massive railroad crossing in the center of town. It's also right through to the point where I was able to connect to eduroam wifi from the train.

My excitement at seeing the boats quickly diminished upon actually seeing them. I think this mainly had to due with the fact that it was late in the day, early in spring, which meant no one was actually out on their boat out on the canal. Boats are more fun when they move.

Boats! Water!

It also felt weird walking through the uni campus because I knew I looked like another student walking around with my youthful face and floral backpack. At one point, someone asked me for directions. I couldn't help them.

The weather became quite chilly, so I called it an early night. I also wasn't in a great place mentally, which I had a feeling was going to affect my race performance.

The race

My feeling was right, but some external factors contributed to this as well. 

When I woke up in the morning, I knew I had to eat a full breakfast, but it felt like a chore to eat more than I wanted to. That's never a good sign. 

It's also not a good sign when I have to break this section off into subheadings.

The toilet debacle

When I got to the race, I saw the world's longest queue to use the toilet. This was at 10:20. The race started at 11:00. As such, I thought it safer to drop off my bag first and then join the queue. 

I waited 30 minutes in the queue to use the toilet - 30 minutes in the wind and overcast skies while wearing short-sleeves. The queue for toilets at races is always long, but this was by far the worst.

It looked like they had a lot of toilets there, but there was no queue management and some lines ended up being a lot longer than others. The toilets were also a 5+ minute walk to the start line, and I finally got the chance to use a toilet at 10:55.

But it wasn't just me. There were plenty of other runners still in the queue behind me. This meant, though, we were literally running to the start line of a run. Once we got there, it was incredibly difficult to insert ourselves into the correct starting gate. 

No one at any point (that I could tell) was giving any runner directions to say get to the start line now, or recognizing the situation and saying they would delay the start.

They did delay the start, though, by about 6 minutes. But again, they didn't announce this. We were all waiting and wondering when we would start running.

The walk of shame

The toilet situation was bad, but then things got worse. About 1/4 mile into the race, everyone stopped. One second we were running, the next we were not and everyone started walking.

This was at the first turn where the road narrowed, but we were still too soon into the race for everyone to have spread out, and things got congested. 

Already not being in a great mental state, the walking situation disheartened me greatly. I don't need to achieve a PB each time, but I did say at the start of the year I wanted to do each race in under an hour. The longer we kept walking, the harder I realized that it was going to be to achieve that.

I also felt bad for runners who were doing their first race - how discouraging that must have been to set yourself a challenge, only to have to start walking so soon into the race.

The pacers

The race had human pacers, who were runners carrying signs saying what pace they were running at. 

I was in the region of the pacers carrying the 1 hour sign, but because of the walking delay, it made me wonder whether they were running at an hour with or without the delay.

Regardless, I didn't like the idea of falling behind them, so I kept pushing myself to stay in front of them. This ended up being a mistake because although I was running fast, it was faster than was good for my body.

The stitch 

After mile 4, I got a stitch. It hurt. Real bad. I must have looked bad to everyone else because a few runners passed me and asked if I was okay. I said I'd be fine. 

This slowed me down greatly. I was doing close to 9 minute miles, and now I was going over 10. The pain finally cleared up by mile 5, but my body couldn't take it anymore and I was less focused on time. I just wanted to finish without having to walk.

I did finish. I didn't walk. But it made me sad to see so many runners racing past me at the end and my body couldn't keep up.

My official finishing time was 1:00:26. According to my running app, though, my moving time averaged a 9:30/mile pace, so had there not been the walking bit, I most likely would have been under an hour.

But I'm not playing hypotheticals. My time is my time. Yes, the race was disorganized, but so was my mind and my body. 

Last month I said I felt good before the race and my time reflected that. In a similar way, this month I felt crap before the race and my time reflected that.

The post-finish walk

My final time wasn't the end of my 10k journey. After the finish line started the overly long walk to get our goody bags and baggage.

The race ended in the cathedral quarter which of course is pretty and quaint, but not ideal for handling 4,547 runners who've just finished a race. This slowed things down.

Cathedral on the medal, cathedral in the background.

On the bright side, it was a good goody bag. The race was sponsored by the Asda Foundation, so there was plenty of treats inside. 

However, the smallest t-shirt size I could get was a size small. As a tiny lady, an adult small is like a dress on me. Would it be so difficult to have an XS option? It's not just big men who run. This is my new cause I'm taking up.

What's my name again

They also provided free medal engraving. The queue for this was of course incredibly long - so long I thought that if I went back to where I was staying, had a shower, and came back, they'd still be doing engraving.

Sure enough, that's what I did and came back to a much shorter queue.

Even the engraving was disorganized. Most runners expected you'd get your time engraved, but the engravers didn't have access to this information. You got a text with your finishing time, but not everyone had their phone on them post-race. 

You could get whatever message you want engraved, though. I ended up just doing my name, finishing time, and date. You had to write this all down beforehand, and the engraver would type it out and give you the chance to double check the spelling.

As if the day wasn't already disappointing enough, it was topped off by the guy turning around the monitor for me to check the spelling, only to witness the worst of sins a person could commit against me - he wrote 'Laura'. 

I would like to make something very clear to the people of this country: Laura is a different name from Lauren. I don't know why y'all insist on wanting to call me Laura, but that isn't my name.

I was also in two minds about whether to get my time engraved because I was so disappointed with it. In the end, though, that's precisely why I got it engraved. The medal is a memory of the race, and my time reflects all the messy bits that went in to crossing that finish line. But the point was that I did cross it.

Inside the cathedral

Having seen the outside of the cathedral the day before, I took the opportunity to go inside it after the race.

The side of the cathedral - it's never-ending. 

It really is massive. It felt like forever to walk around it. There was also creepy organ music playing. 

I was amused on the way out when I saw I sign that they were looking for bell ringers. That sounds like fun.

Castle grounds

Across from the cathedral is Lincoln Castle. The grounds are free to walk around, but I'd say they are the main bits to see.

The castle is basically a giant circular wall (which you could pay to walk around) and then a few not very castle-ish buildings which didn't look like you could go in. 

So it seemed like £14 mainly got you the opportunity to walk the wall. Not worth the price, in my opinion.

The most castle-like bit of the castle. 

The quest for carbs

I had already researched where I wanted to go for my post-race meal. I found this place that sold savory waffles, which sounded yummy.

On the walk down Steep Hill to get there, I passed a bakery where I saw a loaf of challah and I knew I had to check this place out. The UK isn't exactly crawling with challah. Well, Scotland at least.

As much as I was tempted by the challah, I didn't get it because I knew I'd be eating it on my own, and that's a lot of bread to get through.

Instead, I got a pain au chocolat and a cheese and onion bialy. It was still a lot of bread. 

But I saved these until after my a savory waffle, which was okay but not great (it was a waffle with shakshuka - a medley of tomatoes, eggs, beans and spices).

Wish I got a picture of the bialy instead.

The bakery goods, though - that was some good stuff. I was surprised I had never heard of the place during my research, and it turns out it only opened on Friday. They're going to do well. 

Oh, my legs

It was raining when I finished lunch and it was cold (the forecast said it was going to be sunny and a high of 58F - this did not happen). I was also feel generally run down (run pun!), so I decided I could use the rest. 

I didn't want to rest all the rest of the day, though, so I went for a walk along the canal in the evening. I don't think this was the best idea. My legs were crying at the end. 

I also woke up at 3am with my legs screaming at me they were in such pain.

It was weird because at the end of the race I was thinking how my right ankle didn't hurt anymore (which it had been since the Liverpool race). I guess when one pain heals, another comes about. I'm so glad today starts an 8-week step count challenge at work. 

The journey back

My host very kindly drove me to the train station in the morning; my legs were most thankful. 

No delays on the train back, luckily, and I even had a nice chat with the woman sitting next to me. I saw she was reading Trevor Noah's memoir, Born a Crime, and as an avid Daily Show viewer, I had to get the scoop on why she was reading the book. Look at me - initiating conversation with a stranger. 

It wasn't the weekend I was expecting, but I've definitely come back to Edinburgh in a better mindset because of all the craziness. So thanks for that, Lincoln. 

I'm still going to send through some critical feedback to the race organizers, though. 

Next race

Great Manchester Run

I only have to take one train to get there. Hurray!