Saturday, 19 October 2013

Marple Parkrun 5k


1 week before Snowdonia. If I can’t run 5k flat out in just over 20 mins, what hope do I have in running a marathon for 3.5 hours plus? Me and mrs theoptimisticrunner brought the kids down to Brabyns Park in Marple for the grandparents to look after whilst we had a final fling training run.

There’s nothing like having kids to bring you down to earth – forget about preparing for a sub-4 hour marathon target time, there’s coats to put on, dummies to find and screaming to deal with. You’re 14th out of 104 runners in the parkrun? I don’t care, I’m knee deep in a puddle and I’m having a great time!

After a brief warm up we were away. I felt close to the front of the pack but the pace was painful. Managed to hang on for the first lap; the second lap was a skin of the teeth job. One runner (Frank Fielding, fellow Pennine fell runner and track athlete extraordinaire [now 50+]) overtook me, I managed to claw him back but couldn’t get any nearer the next man. 21:22 I think I did it in, a new PB. Like I say, it’s all relative. Didn’t mean anything on the day, I had bigger fish to fry in a week’s time.

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