Park Run

...reaches the parts other runs can't reach.

Its a major endeavour to get up on a Saturday when you don't have to and go to the park run. Yesterday I worked a long day back at my old ward - 7 in the morning to 8 at night - and when I got home, although I'd been playing with the idea of getting back into the park run thing, I decided I'd chill out and have a glass of wine and do something else today instead. But then when I was flicking about on the internet prior to going to bed I suddenly saw that the BBC weather site was predicting almost no wind for this morning.

The major adversary at the park run apart from your own lack of fitness is wind so the idea of a wind-free run was just too appealing, so I went through and told Peter and we decided we'd go for it anyway, even though we were tired and a little bit drunk.

So up we jolly well got this morning and got ourselves along to Cramond. It had clearly been raining hard over night and the ground was wet but it was actually quite sunny and warm and there did seem to be no wind. Neither of us were feeling springy as we warmed up. Neither of us have run since Wednesday's club run. Peter was so knackered after pushing too hard on Wednesday he had to walk a couple of times on the 3 mile run home. I was delighted. Its usually me who's begging for mercy after pushing too hard on a Wednesday night.

There was the usual mix of fun meeting people before the race and fear at the prospect of trying to run hard and then we were off. I've run worse races and worse park-runs (well one, time-wise), but I felt I paced it reasonably and did what I could. Each park run follows a predictable pattern. The 1st mile was fairly quick - but not outrageous. The 2nd mile was a good bit slower. When we turned around at the end of the prom a headwind had sprung up from nowhere so that was the end of the dream of the wind-free run. It would have taken more than a lack of wind to help me really, but I managed to pass a few girls in the last mile, which IS good because I have often had to suffer the agony of a stream of runners passing me towards the end of the run. The finish line appeared and gave me heart to lift the pace just enough to hold off a few runners who were dangerously near behind.

My hope is to get in the habit of doing the park runs again and that things will improve from here.

Tomorrow we're thinking something hilly in preparation for the hills and cross-country to come....