Midweek League Race 3@Welwyn Garden City

Wednesday 11 June saw race 3 in our midweek road race league hosted by Herts Phoenix in Welwyn Garden City.
When reviewing the fixtures for this year's league, I realised I was due to be at a conference in Berlin on Tuesday/Wednesday (Localisation World, I am a linguistic geek). So, what would any sane person do? They would apologise profusely for not being able to make the race. Of course, that was not the option I chose. I decided it would be far more fun to leave the conference early and try to make the race.
My flight left Berlin at 16:35 (I had to miss the last session of the conference intriguingly entitled "The Intergalatic Impact of Language") so I jumped in a taxi at 3pm making it to the airport in enough time to remember I needed to eat and drink more water. Luckily the flight took off on time, I'd checked in online so I'd chosen a seat near the front of the plane and I only had hand luggage (I was flying to Terminal 5 so there was more than one reason to not check in luggage, after all I wanted to see it again (Did you know unclaimed luggage gets auctioned?)).
We landed at Heathrow early! This was good news as looking at the train times it was going to be tight getting to the race on time. But sadly we were too early for our stand and had to wait 10 minutes until another plane left. By this point, I'd taken the precaution of putting my trainers on and I legged it through Terminal 5 (it's big!), accidentally jumped the passport queue and threw myself onto a tube train that left 30 seconds later (what luck!).
Then I spent an hour on a tube train. I knew there was a train at 18:36 and 19:06 and there was no way I'd be there in time for the 36 so I just sat with my fingers crossed hoping there was no delays on the tube. Luckily there weren't and I made it to Kings Cross (after running up the escalators) with a few minutes to spare.
At this point, I deployed the next part of my plan which was to change into my running kit on the train (I did feel like a wally sitting on the train in my kit) and then I sat on the train. Sadly, I hadn't spotted that the train was goiong to spot at Potters Bar AND Hatfield on the way to WGC which added crucial minutes onto the journey time. My heart was beating like crazy and I was all clammy...at this point I decided that if I missed the start I'd do the race anyway...
The train got into WGC at about 19:35, by some fluke I had managed to get on a carriage that was opposite the ticket barriers so I jumped off the train, flung myself at the barriers, legged it down some escalators and into a taxi.
I decided that I would get the taxi driver to drop me off on the start line (to hold the race up if needed), I arrived with 3 minutes to spare (best £3 I have spent in ages) and I even had time to find a safe place for my bag and have a wild wee under a tree.
Oh yes, and there was a race too. I ran surprisingly well finishing the (was it wasn't it?) 5 mile course in 42:41. Must have been all the adrenalin pumping round my body!

(Oh, and thanks to Tash for the use of her Wimbledon towel!)