A lovely run around Regents Park

Hello! I’ve been away for a few weeks.  When I say away, I’m not speaking particularly literally… I’ve been to some places, but just haven’t really done anything particularly of note.

I did, however, get myself to London on a sunny Saturday morning to run round Regents Park in aid of the British Heart Foundation.  A short note/whinge at this point, if I may… I run because I enjoy it. And for that reason, I don’t bother people for sponsorship. I suppose this could be seen as a tiny bit selfish as the entry fees for these races only usually cover the set up costs and it’s not very charitable to run a race but donate nothing, so for that reason I gave a fiver at the baggage drop instead of the suggested £1 and left it at that. I have an inerrant hatred of people who do things they want to do and demand money ‘for charity’- stuff like parachute jumping, where you get a cheap/free jump if you raise x amount-  if you want to do it that badly, pay for it yourself and don’t expect me to part- fund your revels.  End rant!

Anyway, back to Regents Park.  It was a gorgeous day- sunny, but a little bit chilly, and I was hoping for good things. I screwed up immediately by leaving the house late and having to sprint off of the bus, into the station and up two flights of stairs to make the train (a little unexpected speed training). Happily I made it in time, met my buddies and we got to the park in good time for a pre-race wee IN AN ACTUAL TOILET! Not for Regents Park a grim little portaloo, the park was amply equipped already, so that put me in a good mood from the off. The queue to store baggage was a little on the slow side but we still had enough time to watch the warm up (i’m not really one for pre race aerobics!) and elected to pick up our free red tshirts at the end.

The course was one lap for a 5 k and you could peel off and do two for a 10 if you desired. I’d pre decided to do to 5 and set off slooowly over the start line (there were timing chips so I want bothered about clamoring to get over the start line at speed) before opening up into the park.  We ran mostly on pathways and a lot of the first half seemed to be sloping downhill which was nice.  AND we ran past London zoo- I saw a camel and what was quite possibly a pygmy goat.  Exciting times. There was a longish section that went back on itself, giving me the opportunity to wave at my speedier friend and, inevitably, because what goes downhill must come up, a bit of a climb to the end. I really pushed out on the last k… possibly a bit too much because about 200m from the finish line, I’ll swear I was going backwards, I’d slowed down that much!

The overall result- 31.06. I’ll be honest, when I signed up for this race I was sort of hoping that it would be the day that I broke the magic 30 minute barrier, but I reality I knew I hadn’t trained enough so was quite content to post my second fastest 5k time since records began (in September last year!) and am pretty happy that I’m still improving, albeit at a slow rate. My regular parkrun buddies agreed that there’s definitely something comforting about knowing the course you’re going to run and I’m looking forward to going back to home turf again the week after next to see if I might be able to crack the 30 minute barrier.

In the meantime, it’s time to set myself a distance goal and I’m looking at signing up for a 10k, with no aspirations to do anything more than get around the course- I already run 7 or so k on my longer runs so think the battle here will be purely psychological, but sometimes the battles in your head are the hardest ones, right!

Parkrun

ParkRun Week 1: 37:56

For many a year, I’ve been an on again, off again runner, every so often dusting off my trainers for a few weeks or months of pootling around the park at a snail’s pace, stopping and walking if I felt like my breathing was too loud. I even ran the London marathon quite a few mooons ago, clocking in at a ridiculously slow time, and with a lot of walking in between, but I loved the training- it was cold, but I explored bits of Leeds I’d never have gone to otherwise (where I was at uni) and had a fine old time listening to Radio 1.

After the marathon, I did a few 5ks and some random months of running but my most recent bout of running started back in May and everything seemed to click into place- I wasn’t stopping if I got a little bit puffed out, I was going further, and best of all, Mark started coming out with me, which made it so much more appealing to get out the door. We don’t actually run together- I hate that- It makes me talk too much. Instead, he pelts off into the distance (being a much faster runner than me) and I keep a more sedate pace behind him. Even though  we don’t actually run alongside eachother, knowing that we’re going out makes me less likely to slack off.

Anyhoo, after a few training sessions, we, along with our friends Han and Paul decided to sign up to a Parkrun. If you’ve not heard of them, they’re all around the world and are basically timed 5k runs, taking place on a Saturday morning at 9am in various parks. Best of all, they’re free and aside from signing up initially online, you don’t have to sign up to every single run, so you can turn up (or slack off) on the morning of the run as you feel fit.

We picked a race about 15 minutes from us- Not the closest, but a bit bigger and slower (good for me and Hannah, who aren’t the speediest hares!) and took ourselves off in the drizzle two weeks ago. I took the whole thing at a happy plod, with some good tunes on my headphones, and was really chuffed to get round in under 40 minutes, but best of all, I didn’t stop once!

We went back again this week- No drizzle, so even more people were out and I smashed my previous week’s time by 4 minutes, and I’m now sitting at just over 34 minutes for a 5k. Me and Han are determined to get under 30 minutes by the end of the year. Clearly I’ve just not been trying hard enough in the past, as 4 minutes off your best time in the space of a week is rather pleasing, but I think there’s nothing like a bit of a race to get your competitive spirits out, be it competing against the other runners, or just trying to get a better PB. That and realising that I’m not actually going to have a heart attack even if I do push myself that little bit harder!

It’s only Monday, but I’m already looking forward to the weekend, to see if I can do any better, and I’ve got two training runs plotted in the diary, even though I’ve got a really busy week planned with cakes, work and other stuff- I’ve most definitely got my running mojo back!

More info on parkrun- http://www.parkrun.org.uk/

If you like a run, or even if you just like the idea of it but haven’t ever done it before, give it a look- It’s brilliant!