I completed my first ever parkrun on Saturday (16th February). These parkruns are free, timed 5k runs that take place every Saturday across lots of locations across the country. One of these events take place in Princes Park every week (http://www.parkrun.org.uk/princes/). Given its 5 or 6 miles from our house, and it’s been running for almost two years I really should have raced it before now.
Daniel came down from
Scotland for the weekend and was staying in our house. I knew his brother Paul ran in these events
and thought it might be a good idea to combine a run with a catch-up with his
brother. I didn’t anticipate all of the
champagne we drank on Friday or waking up feeling a little rough when I initially
suggested it though!
In my brief warm up prior
to the race I broke into a jog and my heart rate rocketed. I then did a couple of sprints and my lungs
were aching. The champagne was running
through my veins! This could be an
interesting run. A 5k gives you nowhere
to hide. It is fast from the start and
never lets up.
Prior to the start, I
noticed that a few guys from the club were running today – which is great
because it’s nice to see them, but on the other hand it puts some added
pressure because you want to beat them! It
also lets you know exactly where your fitness is in relation to everybody else.
Not always a good thing!
From the 160 or so
athletes taking part, I positioned myself on the 3rd row, behind one
of our clubmates Lee Steele. Almost two
years ago, I did a couple of 3k time trials with the club on our Tuesday night
run sessions and we used to run more or less the same times (10.57). Since then, Lee has specialised on sprint
distance triathlons whilst I’ve had a year of no speedwork at all due to
injuries. I didn’t expect to beat Lee
today, but I was interested to see what the difference in performance would be
(quite a lot as it turned out!).
The gun went and we were
off. I started off pretty quick, in the
top 10 or 12. I could feel my heart rate
rise and rise, reaching 186bpm within 1 minute of starting! I continued at my pace, hoping that my heart
rate would come down once it got used to running at this pace! Fortunately it did, it dropped to mid-170’s, although
not for very long! Within a minute, it
peaked at 188 – an unsustainable heart rate.
I dropped my pace a little and my heart rate dropped and remained at between
180 and 182 for the rest of the race.
The first kilometre was
covered in 3.41, the second in 3.42.
This was quick for me. The next
kilometre slowed to 4.00, with the fourth dropping to 4.05. I was tired!
With 1k to go, I picked up my effort and managed to run the last
kilometre in 3.56.
The Garmin stats:
|
Split
|
Time
|
Best Pace
|
Avg HR
|
Max HR
|
|
Summary
|
19:25.0
|
2:46
|
178
|
188
|
|
1
|
3:41.0
|
2:46
|
170
|
188
|
|
2
|
3:42.4
|
3:06
|
177
|
183
|
|
3
|
4:00.4
|
3:18
|
181
|
182
|
|
4
|
4:05.0
|
2:52
|
179
|
181
|
|
5
|
3:56.2
|
3:24
|
182
|
183
|
I finished 18th
out of the 163 people who finished the race.
In my first race in the veteran category, I was 2nd veteran,
beaten by just 15 seconds! I was also 5th
MerseyTri finisher.
As
for Lee Steele, well he was a lot better than me, finishing in 18.36 and 6
places ahead!
This was my first running
race in a long, long time and it was good to blow off a few cobwebs. After the race I concluded a couple of
things. Firstly, I’m not a 5k racer (not
currently anyway!) and secondly, 5ks are really tough!
