Run #31
First Time at Bushy parkrun
It was decide we'd take this week's parkrun tourism a couple of miles down the road to Bushy Park: home of parkrun. Bushy can regularly have almost 1000 runners so the parking or rather, getting out of the Park before lunchtime afterward, had always been something of a disincentive. We hoped this was likely to be slightly less of an issue than usual when we stepped out of the flat to find it snowing. But in fact 844 people still turned up to run in the snow, which says a lot about parkrunners, and probably Bushy parkrunners in particular.
After dashing back into the flat to grab waterproof jackets and an extra hat we headed off managing, in a typically British way, to talk about the weather, and running in the weather, almost all the way there. Arriving 30min early made grabbing parking a cinch, and also gave plenty of time to run the car heater on full and debate the merits of jogging over to the toilet block in the snow, versus staying warm in the car for 5 more minutes (the desire to not think about the bladder the whole way round won).
As it transpired the snow had massively eased by the time we lined up at the start and would in fact have stopped by the off. But as it hadn't on leaving the warm cocoon of Volkswagen I wore too many layers, as usual. The start was probably about 30 people wide; more a bunch than a funnel, and I was amused that the pre-race briefing came out of a speaker a chap held on top of his head. No issues with bunching and very little congestion at the start made for a good paced first k that segued into the second before I knew it. And, true to form, I was too warm before the second k was over. "Dress for the 2nd K" M told me - one of these days I'll get that right!
M set a good pace and I made a conscious decision not to check my watch. I could feel it was pretty pacy for me; not my all-out effort but at least 10 sec/k below my comfortable pace was the gut feel. I honestly didn't notice at the time but we overtook a lot of runners and weren't over taken at all. Which was great considering how difficult it felt trying to seed at the start.
It was pretty slippy and muddy in places and I could feel muscles round my hips kicking in to keep me upright. The extra effort that not slipping takes me is no doubt a direct reflection on my weak core. Really should get back to the planking! And it meant a few wide sweeps on corners. But the inevitable face-plant was saved for another day and I came in with a time I've only ever beaten over 5k twice before.
The logistics and organisation at Bushy were top notch. What could have been chaos was a well thought out well oiled machine of cheerful and enthusiastic efficiency. Right down the the bucket you could put your barcode into it you were too embarrassed by your time to go and get scanned (or had forgotten your own barcode). Genius.
With a fast flat course that could easily yield some PB times in better weather, we'll certainly be back
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