Run > General

Wet, windy and cold. Waiting in the rain for start of parkrun, doing jogging on the spot to try and keep warm.

Didn’t wear gloves as I forgot them (they were probably still wet from 1.5 days earlier). They would have been handy if they were dry.

Started towards the back, moved through the first uphill section but trying to not overtax myself. Was doing about 5:15/km pace when I checked the watch near the top.

I think that the rain stopped at some point early on in the parkrun.

My memory of running hard in parkrun was coming back to me. Struggling for breath almost the whole time and willing my legs to keep going though they feel like they don’t want to move. I had a bit of this feeling but am still in the process of getting to grips with it again, and trying to get fitter. So I can’t afford to do that in the first half of the parkrun.

I stayed the same pace as people around me, until the second uphill, and I pressed a bit more on the pace. Gained one or two places and felt tired at the top. Then there’s a downhill. Either recovery time and relaxing, or using the downhill to get a bit more pace. I decided on the latter but not going over the top. It would be foolish to do that with still 3km to go.

Then a bit that’s relatively flat and I went into more of a cruise mode.

During the run I thought that last week I ran 26:14, so under that was my aim for today. But I’ve just checked, now that I’m writing this, and it was 25:14 that I ran. A whole minute faster than I had thought!

There’s a bit of a descent down to the halfway point where we turn around and go back the way we came.

I checked my watch a little after going around the halfway point and saw 12:31 as the time. Doing an even split would mean finishing a bit under 25 minutes (it was a few seconds after the halfway point when I checked the watch).

I felt that was a good time, but I wasn’t sure I’d be able to maintain my pace. I was already close to the point of giving up and easing right off on the pace. For a brief moment as I was running along the track with the wind gusting and my hands frozen, and half feeling my legs, when I went past the point closest to the parking lot, I had the notion of just running back to the car where it would be warm and out of the wind.

I tossed that idea aside and continued on, trying to have a consistent pace. The steepest uphill was coming up and I’d try my best to not slacken off. I felt my pace was slower but shorted my stride - instead of bounding and playing havoc with my muscles - and that seemed to work. At least it didn’t tire me out too much and I felt I was going okay. Nearing the top of the hill where it flattens out I thought I’ll use this downhill to get a reasonable amount of pace. I passed a couple of people on the downhill. I checked my watch and about 1.4km left to go. I didn’t go anywhere near all out on the downhill, there was still another uphill and then a downhill to the finish. I saw my overall time was 21 minutes something. It felt like I was close to the end and I was surprised by the time.

In reality it was probably still 800m to go.

I pushed into the last uphill with a bit more pace and then the downhill. I could see the finish line and was going well, wanting it to finish as soon as possible. I didn’t have much energy but was trying. Nowhere near sprinting but quite a good pace. And then 100m to go and I could hear someone behind me. I turned and they were catching me. I can’t let this happen I said to myself, so put on more of a spurt and got to the finish line before them!

I thought that I was at least 2 minutes faster than last week. I thought I was going to finish in 23:x but I didn’t pay attention to my watch as I went through the finish. I was tired and gasping. When I did check my watch I saw that it had 4.96km. So I wandered off for a little more of a jog, instead of collapsing onto the cold and wet trail.

My official time was 24:12. Upon reflection that was a great time. For some reason I thought I had run 23:xx. That might be for next time! 24:12 is still over one minute faster than last week. I also ended up with a negative split. That didn’t really seem possible when I had over half the parkrun to go. I thought I’d be lucky to just maintain the pace without detonating.

I saw two people slip. One before the parkrun, on a bit of sloping grass near the start line. Ended up right on their backside. The second person slipped 50m before the finish line of the parkrun. They were in a group of 4 people and were running on a grassy sloping part of the trail near a fence and lost their footing. Perhaps they twisted an ankle, but they were more embarrassed about it then injured (they said). Hopefully that was true.

Split Summary
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1) 1km - 5:03(5:03/km) 143/155bpm [722b/km] 62cal 11.89/12.73kmph
2) 1km - 4:49(4:49/km) 154/161bpm [742b/km] 64cal 12.46/13.1kmph
3) 1km - 5:05(5:05/km) 159/164bpm [808b/km] 69cal 11.81/13.17kmph
4) 1km - 4:57(4:57/km) 162/169bpm [803b/km] 70cal 12.1/13.27kmph
5) 1km - 4:35(4:35/km) 164/171bpm [752b/km] 66cal 13.09/15.32kmph
6) 0.04km - 12(5:07/km) 168/168bpm [861b/km] 2cal 11.71/11.72kmph