So today (Saturday) was the 5th anniversary of the Bushy Park Time Trial Bushy parkrun so we were up bright and early to head to the park and help set things up. I can’t be trusted to do real tasks so I took a few photos instead.
Kirsty casually watches people frantically trying to save the balloons!
It was good to capture the event, especially when the helium balloons decided to break free!
I wandered off, took a few photos of frisky deer and then came back as the numbers were building. I guzzled my ‘super juice’ (Lucozade Sport) and then got ready for the 8:45am prizegiving.
The prizegiving was ace - we had running superstars Steph Twell and Benita Johnson (together with ‘almost’ London Marathon ever-present John Hanscomb) handing out the prizes and it was great to see the smiles on everyone’s faces.
After the main prizes a presentation of a superb mosaic picture from the first every event was made to Paul Sinton-Hewitt. All members of the ‘100 club’ came out as the presentation was made and Paul seemed really touched by the occasion. Special thanks to Danny N. for putting in many hours of work into creating the mosaic. It looked brilliant.
Once the formalities were over it was back to business, and the 270th running of the Bushy parkrun. We set off and I was off like a whippet, but running within my comfort zone. Half-way down the first straight I found myself running beside Steph Twell who was clearly having an easy day (as she’s run 15:18 over 5000 metres on the track this year!) but running alongside a ‘star’ is something worth hanging on to - which I did for the first mile of the race. After a mile or so she drifted ever so slowly ahead, and effortlessly at that.
Back where I was I was running alongside a young (ie., less than half my age!) chap I know called Luke. He’s been running brilliantly lately and we seem to be closely matched at present. We stuck together like glue and ran our little hearts out!
I don’t believe anyone overtook us, and we certainly edged past a few people to find ourselves in a little ‘pack’ with around 400m to go. Luke had the edge on me today but we both pushed hard to the finish. In the final straight I glanced at my watch to see it say 17:something so knew I was on for a good time so just put the hammer down and ran as best I could. I crossed the line in 18th place (with Luke finishing in 16th) but most importantly I broke 18 minutes!!!
Last week I managed a 3 second personal best (PB) to get my time to 18:01, and today I smashed that with a time of 17:53. Brilliant. Going sub-18 is quite a milestone and I just need to back this up with a few more sub-18 runs to prove to myself that it wasn’t a one-off.
Tom Morgan - 2009 Bushy parkrun male points prize winner
I then grabbed my camera and took a few more pictures of this special parkrun day, including one of male points prize winner Tom Morgan working on one of the registration computers with his 1st place trophy.
Once we’d finished we drifted over to the Bushy park cafe (which is lovely) for coffee and chat.