I really fancied myself for a PB this week and so I determined to launch a two-pronged attack:
- Firstly, rest. After shifting my training sessions around earlier in the week I decided to rest properly on both Thursday AND Friday, and to get a good night's sleep.
- Secondly, recognising that I often feel terrible early in races - typically the first 1½ km of a 5 km race - and have to overcome my self-doubts (with some success, it must be said) I couldn't help but wonder how much faster I might go if I actually felt good in this important phase! To that end, I had a little jog and some gentle stretching while waiting for my lift, and then another good warm-up jog and more stretching before the race.
My mood can only have been helped by the glorious Spring weather, which clearly also helped to attract what turned out to be a record field, by a good margin. I even remembered to switch the Garmin on to track down some satellites, and then to start the stopwatch.
The formula seemed to work, as I felt great from the start, and passing the bandstand the first time, at about 500 metres, I was lying in 7seventh or eighth position.
Being a bit nearer to the 'sharp end' than usual at this stage there wasn't much overtaking going on, and I found myself on my own for a while. Eventually a Bournville Harrier chased me down and got past - and I wasn't able to do much about it. I did pass one runner quite early on, but he looked like he'd given up on the race, for whatever reason, and was just jogging round. On the last lap I was passed by a group of three, including the first woman. This was around the 4 km mark. Shortly afterwards, though, the young guy, third of the group, slowed appreciably and I was past him again, but the other two were stretching their lead on me.
Somehow my mind wandered by the fish pond, a point where I usually slow a little, but turning toward 'Fergal's Corner' I got my concentration back, probably in expectation of Fergal's exhortations to up the pace! Fergal duly obliged, so of course I had to do my best to increase speed, especially as a glance at my watch told me what I was hoping - that a PB was definitely on the cards.
I pulled out all the remaining stops, but was really struggling to get the legs moving much faster. Nevertheless I made ground on the runners ahead, almost catching the young lady who had passed me a kilometre earlier. Coming through the funnel it dawned on me that today it was my leg muscles that were limiting me, rather than my lungs. This seems to suggest that the rest did me good, and that, to progress further, I need to combine rest with speed work. No surprises there!
Another glance at the watch confirmed a PB - I made it 19:43.72. I sneaked a look at Chris' clipboard and he had me down as 19:44 - fair enough. The result email arrived at 11:43 (as usual I was impatiently waiting for it, alternating between refreshing my email and the Cannon Hill parkrun results page!), and there it was in black and white: 19:44, 12th place of 129 runners, and first VM50-54. A PB by 5 seconds. Strangely, though, the email reported me as 9th gent even though the results page shows, as I thought, that there was only one lady ahead of me (and only just!), so I was actually 11th gent. No matter, the PB is the only important thing!
After chatting with various parkrun friends I headed off on a jog home - 3.76 miles, or, as I forgot to change my watch back from metric to imperial, 6.06 km.
I recall reading a letter in the free newspaper 'Metro' some time ago in which the writer asserted that 'you never see a happy jogger'. Jogging home in the sunshine with a shiny new PB under my belt I can tell you I had a big grin on my face!
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