Aiming for under 30

Having PB’d with 29.37 on New Years Eve with the help of a fast and very competent runner, today I set out for my 23rd parkrun hoping to achieve 29.59. I had not run since my first 10km on New Years Day which I had really enjoyed as I had found someone there to run with.

This morning in the freezing cold - it was minus 1 - I desperately searched the crowd at the Norwich parkrun briefing for a woman whose name I know and whose parkrun times I had looked at, I was disappointed that I could not see her or her husband.

I made my way to the start line and set off - on my own. I started out fast and soon let my Garmin settle me into the pace I had in mind - an average of 5.59 minute kilometres which would get me a sub 30 minute parkrun time. As every runner overtook me, I looked at them to see if they were who I had wanted to run with. I tried to remember everything my pacer had said to me on New Years Eve, stride out on this lap, sort your breathing out here, take it easy here, push along there. Unfortunately I didn’t see the person I wanted to be running with, until halfway. Hooray, no more looking at my watch I actually had a pacer right there. I followed Lynda for half a lap and then had to resort back to my watch. I maintained my 5.59 however during the last half a mile I struggled to maintain the pace and kept dipping to 6.00. Each time I saw this on my watch I had to push on with my eyes fixed to my watch until it returned to 5.59. In the last few hundred metres I didn’t have much left to push so just ran, I didn’t even have a sprint finish in me! I forgot to stop my watch and when I remembered to I decided I must have just missed out on the time I had wanted.

My result arrived by text and to my delight I achieved 29.57. Wow. I had hated my run on my own but I had managed to pace myself a great time which I was really pleased with.