Maria Garcia, Physio
On Sunday 10th July, Davinia, Emma and I and 27 other Samson Centre fund raisers took on the London ASICS 10km challenge.
It was our first time running the event so we weren’t sure what to expect.
On the day it was a very early start and Davinia and I, met on the train. One of the other Samson runners spotted the vest and joined us as we navigated around London to the start line.
It really helped to have a friend to navigate with around London, find the toilets (!), then the bag drop off and weave our way to the start line.
It was an extremely hot day, and reached 22 degrees before 9am. Luckily there were lots of water stations before the start line, and also lots of toilets!
It was very well organized, as it needed to be as there were over 9000 runners. As we were waiting to start there was lots of music and a fun warm up session.
Whilst we went round the course it was great to see other runners in the Samson Centre vests, seeing each other gave us a boost as went round the long hot route.
There was lots of music and entertainment alongside the beautiful sights of London. Unfortunately, the 1st water station wasn’t until the 6km which on a normal day would have been ok but not at 23 degrees.
Going over Westminster Bridge, with the sun beaming down was a real struggle but then as we went past Big Ben we saw Vicky and her daughter cheering us on, this gave us a real lift.
Coming over the finish line was a big relief and felt like we had really achieved something great.
It really was a brilliant day and seeing all the donations come in really inspired us to continue with our training and complete the 10km run. I would really encourage anyone to try next year, if its your 1st 10km or 5th you’ll have a great experience and lots of support!
