Almost Wordless Wednesday: Race Photo

This photo was taken on Sunday at roughly 37km (although I was running about +1km by my watch so 38km).  I am smiling in ALL of my pictures which was totally on purpose.  I wanted to make sure I didn't have any oh-my-gosh-I-hate-this-why-am-I-here-I'm-never-doing-this-again shots.  

Photograph obviously belongs to MarathonFoto

I may look like I'm having the race of my life here, but I was so miserable!  My hip flexors, quads and hamstrings were extremely unimpressed with me; my digestive tract was unimpressed with me (see Mum?  I can be discreet) to the point of severe chafing; and about 1/2 a kilometre later my knee started to pop/give out on the uphills.  I figured if I forced myself to smile for the cameras I couldn't break down and cry (I saved that until I found Colin and then bawled like a baby).

So the lessons learned here were:

• Fake it till you make it.
• Smile even if it feels like it will kill you because it will look like you had a great race.
• When you are a slower runner you get better pictures.  If I'd been faster there would have been other runners in the shots.  However, when you're pretty much on your own you have the photographers' full attention.