For the past few weeks Saturday mornings have consisted of an early morning swim (about 4.5k – an hour an a quarter of front crawl) in the lake at Princes waterski club, and then at 9am its the Bedfont Lakes parkrun – the latest in the growing empire of free, timed, weekly 5k running events.
It was a welcome sight to see Darren Wood at the start – the first parkrun he’s run at other than the 200+ runs he’s done at Bushy parkrun. We warmed up together – discussed the course (and its little hills) and then lined up for the start.
Its so easy to get carried away at the start and run ahead of yourself but I held back and watched four people run ahead. There were no super-quick runners today so I kept the leaders in sight for the first km. They were only about 10 seconds ahead of me. Just after 1km I caught up with the leading group and edged past them one by one. By 2km I was in the lead! Eek. I’ve not experienced that before. The only thing ahead of me was the lead bike and empty path.
As we headed onto the second lap I knew I was running quicker than I had done for some time, and was afraid of blowing up on slight uphill and watching everything fall apart. I stayed focussed, didn’t push unnecessarily hard (I couldn’t if you’d wanted me to!) and just stuck with it.
In the last km I knew there was a runner not too far behind but was pretty certain I’d be able to stay ahead – and that I did. I rounded the final bend, ran into the finishing chute and collected my token – with the number ’1′ printed on it. Brilliant. My finishing time was 18:25. The last time I ran quicker than this was an 18:16 at Bushy parkrun in September 2008. I tell you, Bedfont is certainly more than 9 seconds slower than Bushy parkrun, so I look forward to running Bushy in a few weeks time to give the legs a good ‘spin’ on a flat course.
One great thing about this parkrun is that the computer where you register your position is sat on a little wooden table/bench with a seat – so I collapsed onto the seat and registered. Lovely.
So here we go, after running 122 parkruns I’ve won my first race! My other best positions at parkrun are 3rd place a few weeks ago and a second place at Richmond parkrun.
Hey David, well done on the victory!
The IM training seems to be going really well, i’m really looking forward to hearing about the race now.
I’m looking forward to writing about the race too – as that means it will be over!
Woo hoo well done! I get excited putting the number 1 token away – only time I get to touch it!