Saturday March 15th 2008

Race Day! I woke up with a chesty cough, and the infamous Chiang Mai cough (pollution apparently).

Would that stop me taking part in my first 5k race ever?

No!

Was it a wise decision?

Well yes and no.

The yes is because it was a Run for Relief for Burma which helps internally displaced people. Both my grandparents are from Burma so it was great to take part in this event. I ended up buying far too many t-shirts and flip flops.

Despite feeling rough I managed to finish 7th (of about 200) in 21:30, although two young chaps passed me wearing flip-flops (which were optional). My Thai friend ChokChai ran the middle ks with me before powering on into 4th.

No because I was coughing my guts up straight after the race. My target had been 19:30 with 20 mins as a minimum target. A time of 21:30 still predicts a marathon time of 3:20 so given I felt so lousy I should be happy!

Hopefully I'll recover quickly I've got my final week of hard training left before my London marathon taper.

As for raw food, I've eaten a lot of citrus fruits today, even though my body misses bananas. I think I will finish the day off with one of my massive raw green smoothies!