After a very restless nights sleep of around six hours on and off, with constant thoughts swirling through my mind, different parts of the course walked before the day had started and whether I had got everything ready and also right!!
I beat the alarm clock and decided to get up at 530 as I wanted to prepare for the day slowly and correctly. Breakfast of Alpen eaten and vanilla protein shake drunk I started to get changed as my lift and support driver Adam was collecting me around 645 to head off to the start line. I checked my kit, and slowly got changed with putting vaseline on my feet and inside of my socks, the weather I thought it was going to play a significant part but to be fair the weather although raining in parts and very damp at other places was no major issue, standing water a plenty but all good considering the days horrid weather the day before.
I hadn't done anything different, ONE pair of socks and trainers with normal laces, kept it to basics, one tip I decided to take up on though was to put compeed plasters on my nipples to stop chaffing, this did work and I haven't suffered from any nipple rub however I am struggling to get one off my even now!!!!
So with all my kit ready, prepped and vaseline applied to certain parts of my body and deep heat to others my lift arrived.
Off to Douglas we headed, strangely excited but mainly nervous I couldn't believe that after six months of training it came down to this. It seemed like every car on the road had someone wearing high vis in it, parking at the car park at Pulrose bridge I met my brother Simon and another member of Team Newbies Dave, Mark the other member of the team was already inside the track awaiting our arrival and had been there since just before 7am.
The place was a buzz of people a whole sea of colours mainly bright Yellow and Orange there was a great atmosphere and everyone saying hello and wishing each other good luck.
We positioned ourselves on the inside of the track around 30-40 metres from the start line, With my watch poised ready to start it was nearly 8am, the sun was actually out and I felt great, all my fears and worries had all gone, I didn't have any butterflies in my stomach nothing just a real positive attitude. There was quite a few people from work and I recognised loads.
Then the start, the crowd surged forward and we were off! not as fast as I thought it was going to be, nice comfortable pace around the track and out onto the access road, as we approached the underpass bridge there was a big queue with people trying to keep their feet dry and not going through the large mass of water which had collected due to the rain. I made a judgement call and went through sort of figured that my feet were going to get soaked anyway, I didn't trample though I went through quite carefully and luckily didn't get soaked.
I reached the first church in what felt no time at all, the first part of the Parish is the only part I havent trained between NSC and Rushen. I kind of figured that I would get carried along with the flow and it was a nice pace of 4mph which I was happy with. The first hill came heading towards the Braid and the first test, it was a breeze passing a few people who had obviously gone off too quick and some that didnt look comfortable climbing. As I climbed the hill I could see Paul one of my training partners a few bodies infront of me so I picked up the pace much to my brothers disgust and headed to speak with him. I did shout back to Simon that I was just going to speak with Paul.
As we headed across the Braid roundabout heading towards the New Castletown Road a familiar face appeared behind us, It was Blogger Ed. Great to see him and have a chat he even disclosed a couple of games that we could play as we were walking around to save the boredom.
The first one was Spot the roadkill and the other was Spot the person that has used their vehicle numbers rather than the ones you should. The difference between the two is the vehicle numbers were smaller and have a 0 at the front! Ed said that he felt good and that he was looking forward to the day ahead and with that he wished us luck and headed off to catch up with some of his friends that were just ahead.Part two coming soon.........
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