Park Run 5k

I set myself a target earlier in the year to do a sub-23min 5km run, and just to make things interesting I chose my closest parkrun to do it at. I'm told it's not the fastest parkrun, and if wet underfoot you can easily put yourself at over a minute disadvantage. Oh well, no point taking the easy option to get a pb, may as well really work for it!

"parkrun organise free, weekly, 5km timed runs around the world. They are open to everyone, free, and are safe and easy to take part in.These events take place in pleasant parkland surroundings and we encourage people of every ability to take part; from those taking their first steps in running to Olympians; from juniors to those with more experience; we welcome you all." (taken from their website)

The concept is simple. You register online, print out a barcode (or buy yourself a fancy plastic tag one), turn up and run. It is just you against you. It's social, it's motivating and wherever you finish I can guarantee there will be people at the end clapping and congratulating you on a great run. The marshals are all very encouraging, as well as being volunteers (anyone is welcome to go help out).

When you've completed the run (it's 2 laps at Marple) you enter the finish funnel, are handed a ticket which is then scanned together with your own barcode. Results are published online and you receive an email with your results usually around lunchtime the same day. Here's mine for today:

Marple parkrun results for event #120. Your time was 00:22:41.

Congratulations on completing your 3rd parkrun and your 3rd at Marple parkrun today. You finished in 34th place and were the 4th female out of a field of 135 parkrunners and you came 1st in your age category VW40-44. Congratulations on setting a new Personal Best at this event! Congratulations on your fastest time this year.

You achieved an age-graded score of 67.82%.

The stats are all online for you to geek over if you wish, with the ability to sort by any column and compare your efforts against other runners on the day or just from your club. For me today was all about going and seeing what I could do. My previous parkrun pb was 25:40, and I knew from non-parkrun runs that I should be able to comfortably get under 25mins. My aim of sub-23mins was for by the end of this year so today really was all about seeing if I could keep a pace to get me close to that.  I ran to pace and feel, only having current pace on my watch so I wasn't tempted to start any mid-run calculations. I only allowed myself a look at overall time when I was about 400m from the finish....quick calculation and I reckoned sub-23 might go! That spurred me on just when I was wanting to stop, or at least slow down considerably.

Many thanks to Dan for the company on our warm up lap, and fellow Glossopdale Harriers....firstly Kirsty who I chatted with prior to starting. She was hoping for around 21mins so I could only hope to keep her in sight for as long as possible. I was on her shoulder for about 500m, then she just pulled away gradually. Thanks also to Andy F who ran, he passed me somewhere on lap 2 and while I had no chance of staying with him it was good to have someone there to pull me along. There were a couple runners just ahead of me for most of the second lap, and one close behind...all motivation to keep close to their heels and not let the one behind past!  Time for some R&R now!