Race Report - Cannon Hill parkrun Event #51 - PB!

There was talk of changing the route yet again so as to avoid potential problems with the cricket parking, as we knew that cars would be crossing the course to get to the temporary parking. In the end we stuck to the current route and kept our fingers crossed! As it turned out, the people in charge of the parking were very helpful and held the traffic up where necessary to let runners through, and there was actually no problem at all.

A sign mysteriously appeared at Fergal's Corner, which had one or two people wondering, but it had the desired effect of making Fergal smile and giving some of us a laugh.

I went down on the bus so that I could run home afterwards, and decided to take my new lightweight New Balance RC130X's to race in and wear the Saucony Hurricanes to run back. I met up with Joe and Gillan, and Jim was back too. I was surprised to see Paul again, after his DNF on Thursday, but he seemed in good spirits. There was another surprise when Mary asked the assembly whether any of the newcomers were likely to win and someone put there hand up! It turned out to be Tipton Harrier Martin Williams, Edinburgh Marathon winner and Commonwealth Games hopeful, and he did indeed win, in 15:30, not a record by any means, but pretty quick!

Martin Williams at Edinburgh

I was hoping, indeed expecting, to do well after Thursday's performance, and set off at a good lick. Almost immediately I saw out of the corner of my eye someone fall headlong. I didn't see much, but it sounded painful and drew sharp intakes of breath from me and others.

Putting that out of my mind, and ignoring the fast disappearing Martin Williams, I took the first turn by the Tearooms into the wind. Pretty soon I was feeling Thursday's race in my legs but the Garmin was showing 1:46 at 0.5 km. My pace slowed a little and fluctuated but a couple of kilometers in it still looked like I was on the pace. I got passed a couple of times even before I got to the leader coming back the other way along the river path. A chap who, with respect, looked as though he might be in my age group passed me easily and I had nothing to respond. The fact that he was wearing a full tracksuit didn't help my spirits! He is in my age group, and went on to beat me by six places and 53 seconds!

By the time I first got to Fergal's corner I'd picked the pace up a little, and was helped as usual by Fergal's encouragement, and seeing the new sign distracted me slightly but made me smile.

From there it was into the wind again and my slowest kilometer, but still sub-4 minutes, and then just a touch under 2 minutes for the penultimate half kilometer but a blistering (for me!) final half kilometer at 1:43. Total? 19:06. Wow. OK, not a 28 second PB but I didn't seriously expect that, and despite really feeling it in my legs, five seconds up.

I saw Paul at the end and found that it was he who had taken the tumble. He had gashes and grazes everywhere and had scored his second DNF in three days! This time he'd gone over on his ankle, and was asking about physios. Hopefully he'll get sorted out quickly.

This time last year, I was still chasing a 5km PB of 20:18 set at Tipton in November 2009, and which I never beat until the end of October at Cannon Hill parkrun with 20:14. By then I was desperate to go sub-20 by the end of the year, but with longer races and foul weather getting in the way I didn't quite make it. The best I could do was 20:01, again at Tipton. I hit 19:53 by the end of January, and have been chipping away at that all year, though it took nearly four months to beat 19:11. Now, of course, I'm back where I was last year, desperate to round down again! Sub-19 by Christmas!


After tea, toasted tea-cake and a good chat I headed home on the usual 5½ mile route, with a smile flickering across my face every few minutes when I suddenly remembered my PB earlier.

Unfortunately my Garmin data was unusable, as somehow I'd managed to include all the time wandering around after the race and sitting in the cafe, and couldn't find a way to strip it out. Still, it was only a steady run so I estimated 44 minutes for 5.53 miles, so 7:57 mins/mile pace.