1st June. The bitch fest is done. in crawling into 2014.

Aka. Today's achievement. Tally and my (not) first race together.

Not? What are those brackets about? Well, tally and I ran our first race together (although I think we power walked it) when she was a teeny fourteen week fetus. It was the Race For Life in Greenness Park, Huddersfield, and my sister and I had agreed to do it together, before I knew I was pregnant. So I just power walked it and she jogged beside me.

Our second race was a two mile race when she was 22 months old. She went in my running buggy, she had her own number and got a medal and a t shirt, the t shirt actually fits her now! Lila was there for that one too, although we didn't know at the time! I was approximately four weeks pregnant.

So today was our third race but the first that we ran together. We started training for it in February this year and have tried to run once a week since then. Talaia has had numerous colds since then so the training was hit and miss but we had some fun. Our runs weren't solely running of course, running with an eight year old inspires fun and the wow factor, from zooming down zip wires at the local park to playing pooh sticks at any water we passed. Tally helped me to see the fun in the run that gps and stopwatches can often banish.

The road to our local race for life is a single track lane in one direction and just wide enough to consider a two track lane the other way so we went early in order to avoid the standing queues of pink beclad drivers awaiting entrance to the park.

The sun shone down with nary a cloud, the queues at the portaloo grew and heart fm chatted excitedly from the stage area.

And one of the Heart Fm presenters there was Kirsten O'Brian, ex kids tv presenter who I have watched for years with various kids. I saw her, most recently, on Smart, an art programme for kids, which was presented by a guy called Mark Speight who died six or seven years ago. He killed himself after the suspicious death of his girlfriend. It was all very sad and I had wondered what had happened to Kirsten. Turns out that she's a Dj here in Swindon!

Anyway, I digress. We joined the crowd in the 'jogging' section of the run to find, as usual, many people had over estimated themselves! Wed only gone a couple of hundred meters when people were stopping, out of breath! Once we'd left them behind we pretty much stuck with the same people and had good rapport going on.

We ran pretty much all of it except when tally needed a drink, we slowed do that she didn't choke.

Around kilometer 3 we saw Rich and Lila cheering us on, we went around the lake, after which was the 4 kilometer mark. And a spectator smoking a cigarette. Sorry, but that really pissed me off. Just beyond her was a string of barbecues!

We reached the 500m to go mark, tally wanted a drink do we slowed, the Marshall said "good walking!" To us, I felt Talaia ranckle, I smiled and replied (through gritted teeth) "we're running, we just stopped for a drink!" The finish straight had bubbles spraying across it, we were out and free, just a short distance do we sprinted and crossed the line holding hands.

Tally wants to do it again now.