Cranleigh 21 - Why not imagine a pea?

The clocks went forward last night, we had a race that was well over an hours drive away and started at 9am... an early start was in order and so was an early night last night.
Despite my early night, my sleep was fitful and mostly unsuccessful, probably totally in no more than about 5 hours...bad times!
Waking with my alarm, at the correct time the first of my potential obstacles for the day was over. My kit was prepared last night and my porridge on the side waiting to be made up to eat before Emma and Simon arrived for our road trip to Cranleigh. 
We hit the road with, printed directions, a sat nav and also Simon's faithful road atlas. The early part of the journey was quite uneventful then within two miles of the start we went down a road, but whilst the road said closed (access only) we figured it must be for the race as so many other drivers (in race kit) were heading that way so we followed, mistake! Before long there were about 20 cars trying for a synchronised 3 point turn to head back in the other direction. After emerging unscathed and the sat nav not much use we came upon a local dog walker and asked for another route.. he directed us then tried to engage us in conversation about running in the London marathon but were late so made our exit as politely as possible.
We arrived with about 25 minutes to spare, perfect really as that was enough to eat a banana, go to the little girls and boys rooms and head to the start for a slightly jumbled and incoherent start.
We started off together as planned with an aim of keeping our pace between 9:45-10:00 min/miles but the flat nature of the course seemed to drive this up a little and we were averaging under that. The sun was shining and it was such a beautiful day, so lovely just to be trotting along without a care in the world and feeling so comfortable at the pace.
Well that didn't last the whole race, at around 13-14 miles I started to feel a bit niggly and grumpy, probably knowing that the race had the option to pull out at 15miles I was weighing this up like it was ever going to be an option for me. During this time of struggling I spotted another runners shirt and it said 'imagine a pea' , very confused and trying to imagine why she would have a shirt saying this I hovered on her heels for some time whilst imagining peas in many scenarios... soon enough it become clear as she straightened her shirt, it was the Imagine Appeal, I suspect nothing to do with peas at all!
I crept slowly away from the other two as I needed to get past the point of no return and into the last lap. As I did this I was still struggling and saw my mum in the distance (as per usual I spotted her before she spotted me) - I got a massive big hug which seemed to re-energise me and get me back into the task in hand with a more positive feeling. 
By the time I'd reached 17miles I had picked up a buddy of similar pace to me, Nick from Woking who would be running the Vienna marathon in 3 weeks time (shout out in the blog as promised Nick!), we continued on for the next 4 miles chatting away to keep our mind from the race but the pace steady. As we neared the finish I felt I could give it a bit of a kick and so I did. Then to the left I heard a very familiar voice shouting Elizabeth at full volume - I reverted back to a child in trouble - it was my favourite Aunty come to see me over the line, then as I rounded the corner to the finish there was my mum again ready with water and a big hug! Awesome!
The others came in a few minutes behind me and we were treated to ice creams, then a cuppa and some cake before heading home for some well deserved relaxation!