Westonbirt is a regular pacing slot on Carmen's calendar, but it's a place I've never visited. Due to this race being two hours from London, and slightly further from Leicester, we headed there in separate cars so I could head back home after the race. When I got there I joined the queue getting into the grassy car park, and could see Carmen several cars behind. I messaged her once I’d parked to make sure she knew. We then walked over to the house to get our race numbers, and Carmen needed to get her pacing stuff. At first they couldn’t find my name in the list, but Janet (Phil’s wife), knew who I was and found me instead.

It was a little cold standing around outside Westonbirt House before the race, but it was out of the wind, so not as bad as it could be. When we were led by pacing group over to the start, that was when it really felt cold. The icy winds blew straight across the path, and the inflatable arch even suffered a little in the wind as one side temporarily collapsed. The wind eased again and the arch returned to its normal position. I imagine those dressed in festive costumes were probably a little warmer.

As soon as I started running, I almost instantly felt warmer. I was several paces behind the 42 minute pacer, and I figured I’d finish about a minute behind. I felt like 43 minutes would be right today as I didn’t feel like my legs had a sub-40 in them, they already felt a little tired from a day of walking around London yesterday.

The route leaves the grounds of the estate quite quickly, and joins a country road past several stone houses. At the first left turn, you then start to climb a hill before the first kilometre is even done. It wasn’t quite as bad as I was expecting, but still steep enough. I was however not losing that much ground on the pacer. By the time we reached the next left turn, I’d recovered.

This road was a little muddier towards the edges, but not enough to bother anyone. Along this road I gradually caught up with the 42 minute pacer so that not long after the next left turn I overtook him.

On this road, every now and then I could hear the pacer (I think) call out “car!” every few minutes as this road was much busier than the previous. I smiled to myself at the thought of it sounding like a crow, and was tempted to do a crow impression, but decided that’d be too silly so stayed quiet. There was then one final hill before turning left back into the grounds of Westonbirt to the sound of Christmas music. Then as getting closer to the house there was the sounds of cheers, and then ‘Shouty Dave’.

Not long after crossing the 5K point I decided I was tired and should walk a bit, and that was probably the beginning of the end. I wasn’t really that tired, I was really just a bit warm and needed to untuck my t-shirt. I’d layered up well for this race, but perhaps hadn’t loosened those layers as much as I should have. I saw the pacer pass me shortly after, and I felt I should probably keep him in sight.

When I got going again, I seemed fine until I reached that hill for the second time, and this time I walked it. There were more cars about on this lap too, with a few passing us on the hill. At the top I got running again, but took several more walking breaks, despite this, I could still see the pacer in the distance for most of the lap.

On the last straight before going back onto the estate, I did try to run the remaining mile, but the last hill was a bit too much for me. I’d gotten closer to the pacer over the last half mile, and I thought there was a chance I could catch up with him before the finish, but walking that last hill ruled that out as a possibility. I wasn’t sure if I’d hit my planned time of 43 minutes or not - I’d not looked at my watch all race, and I wasn’t about to start now.

I did however get running again, and then didn’t stop until crossing the finish line on the grassy area by the house. They handed me a medal that was part-medal, part-snow globe, part-fridge magnet. There was then a bottle of water and a tent with some sweets.

I’d finished with a time of 43:14, in position 32 of 972 finishers. Okay, maybe I was run the first 4% of finishers, but it was far from a good time for me.