Hopetoun House 10k run for Cancer Research UK

Some months ago I was pushed into signing up to do a 10k run around the grounds of Hopetoun House near Edinburgh, to raise money for Cancer research UK, given the charity it didn't take me long to say yes.

Well, yesterday it had finally arrived, the day to do the 10k run.

Now for those who know me, I do not have a runners body nor a gym bunny body, despite me having a personal trainer now, Richard Kerrigan at the Newhaven David Lloyd gym, if anyone else wants to sign up for some decent (but evil) workouts.

So, yesterday morning at 6am the alarm woke me out of my slumber.  First job after feeding my girls, Loco and Taz was to make my porridge with blueberries.

Then I headed out to meet Beverley and Fiona to make our way to Hopetoun House.

We arrived at Hopetoun House and met up with Elspeth and then bumped into Jamie.  Graeme appeared out of nowhere to cheer us on just after the warm up.  The warm up was run by the personal trainer of Beyonce and Madonna. Not a patch on Richard.

So, just after 11am I crossed the start line, well it was 2 minutes and 4 seconds after 11am to be precise.

The grounds of Hopetoun House are stunning and at some point I really want to go and have a proper look round.

When you are jogging round you don't notice everything, up the hill around the lanes and then back up the Z hill and then downhill was where I made up a lot of time.

The worst part was between the 7k and 8k markers where as you turn towards the house, you realise you have to go back out towards the lake and around a few more twists and turns before you get onto the home straight.

As I approached the final turn, Graeme, Charles, Elspeth, Fiona, Beverley and Siobhan were there to give me a big cheer, in fact Beverley ran the last part with me.

I crossed the finish line at 1 hour and 19 minutes, so if I take the 2 minutes and 4 seconds off then that makes my race time 1 hour and 17 minutes for which I am extremely proud.