Saturday 7th February
Run #38
Richmond parkrun
We'd originally chatted around the
idea of running over to Kingston for parkrun today. But i was out Friday night
and, when I rolled in at midnight and quizzed a catatonic M it seemed like the
easier plan would be to just set the regular alarm and keep it local.
Arriving 10 minutes to 9am meant it
was yet to get busy - In contract to Longrun meadow where turning up with 45
minutes to spare seems to be the norm, Richmondites never seem to get to
parkrun with anything more than minutes to spare. Arrive too soon and you'd be
forgiven for thinking it might have been cancelled. But wait until 08:50 or
even :55 and suddenly people arrive from every direction until up to 400 people
are gathered ready to go.
One thing I do like about the
winter months is that they do seem to bring out the more colourful attire. Even
when not twilight running people's cold weather gear more often offers splashes
of highligher pen hues and neon brights.
This parkrun was one that M decided
to run with me and I let him dictate the pace, electing not to look at my
watch. It felt hard. But not in the way that pushing your top pace feels, more
in that way that your usual steady pace feels when you're tired, rundown or
hungover. The major difference I noticed when our times were uploaded later was
how much more even the splits were. When I pace my own parkrun I always go out
too fast, leg it down the big hill to try and buy as much time as I can then
die between 4 and 5k. Turns out today was the quickest I've ever done the 4th k
with far more even splits.
Once we got home M turned and
asked: "what was your previous Richmond parkrun PB?"
"Dunno" I replied,
"but at least 15 sec faster than we did today I'm sure"
"No, 4 seconds faster than you
did today" was the response.
Though today felt a bit tough, it
certainly didn't feel like pushing the pace into PB territory. Which really
does suggest I should take the time to find out my PB before I run. Just in
case I'm that close to hitting it again. Missing out by seconds is just unnecessary.
And dumb.
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