4th (of 132 finishers)
Time: 17:39, NEW PB
The last parkrun I did was in August, just before the John Lucas Memorial 50 miler. Since then I had done a couple more ultras and a tough trail race. In addition, I had done 101 miles in the 7 days leading up to the parkrun, so definitely had some weary legs.
Nonetheless, I hoped and expected to PB. A week earlier I had reduced by 3k PB, which was 18 months old, by 21 seconds, so was at least moving ok.
For this parkrun, the organisers asked runners to bring a donation for a local foodback. A nice gesture and it was great to see a whole heap of bags at the drop point.
It was a cold morning, nippy enough for gloves as the picture above shows. There was a warning about the stretch at the end of the loch having some ice on it and a celebration of the volunteers, as there should be, and we were off.
I spotted Derek Hawkins on the start line and he was gone almost immediately. I kept up with him for around 10-20 metres and I am sure I gave him a massive fright (in a kinda stalkers way) but in the end his 14:55 time was just that wee bit too quick for me!
At the mile I was in 4th place, comfortably behind 3rd and comfortably ahead of 4th. And this wasn’t to change throughout.
I had set my watch to kms as opposed to miles and I was tracking just under 3:30 kms, which meant I would be close to 17:30, which would be a massive PB, but after 3k I was struggling to keep that pace going. With no pressure in front or behind I was racing the clock. A 3:38 km 3 to 4 put paid to any notions of breaking 17:30 and I toddled home in 17:39 (17:36 on my watch) for a new PB by 10s.
I was very happy with that!
John K ran as well, and he took his PB under 21 minutes which was a brilliant run. In fact he was miles inside. Andy was out but he dropped at halfway as his legs just weren’t feeling it. Alas.
Thanks to all the volunteers and cool cats who make parkrun happen. You guys rock!
James Stewart 