Running a half marathon has been on my bucket list for a while so when I saw the London Landmarks Half Marathon on 25th March, it seemed like an exciting one to take part in.
I encouraged my sister in law, Sacha to join me. She ran the London Marathon 4 years ago and vowed she'd never run again so when she agreed, I was really excited! I also put a post on Facebook asking if any of my friends would like to join us. A dad at the school, Wayne, was keen and we trained together. We hosted a cake sale to start raising money for Tommy's who we were running for.
I then found out a tri club member, Clair, was taking part who is also a friend so our team was building. Clair invited her friend too so now we had a team of 5.
Our training was going well, despite winter illnesses, the weather, work commitments and various other excuses we found. Everyone's race packs arrived a few weeks before the big day except mine. I emailed the organisers and they said not to worry, they were being sent out in waves.
I still hadn't received it by the Thursday so I gave the organisers a call. I was starting to panic a little bit. It turns out my registration didn't go through and now it was too late to register. There was another Rebecca Moore and they thought I was the same lady. The other Mrs Moore lives in Wimbledon, we are in Burgess Hill! As you can imagine, I was devastated! With it being my 1st half marathon, I'd been training hard with my buddies the thought of letting people down really upset me. My race buddies were amazing and really encouraging.
My hubby sent an email explaining that this was their error and we asked for special dispensation due to all the hard work I'd put in and the excitement I felt for this event. Thankfully, after a day of waiting, I received an email explaining I can collect my race pack on the Saturday before the event.
This threw another spanner in the works because I couldn't get to London on the Saturday. I rang the organisers again explaining this and they organised for me to collect my race pack on the day.
With the trains messed up on the day, I thought I was destined not to complete this race but my sister in law collected my pack for me and we all took part in the event. Tommy's came up trumps in the end and we all completed the race with smiles on our faces at the beginning and the end!
It just goes to show, good comes out of bad.