I got up bright and early as I was taking my daughter to a friends in a nearby town to drop some stuff off before dropping her at the station in Harpenden. I decided to put my running gear on so that I could run on track on my way back home. There was no time for faffing but I was organised and got a towel, water bottle, phone and headphones ready in record time. As we were driving to the station I remembered that there is a nice cycle track in Harpenden on a disused railway line called The NIckey Line. I've cycled it recently with Mr R, and decided this would be lovely place to run and give me a bit of variety, "I have a very low boredom threshold" I explained to my daughter.
It was a lovely track to run, and several small children on their way to school with parents decided to run alongside me for a short while at different points along the way. I was doing intervals as part of my preparation for Race for Life 10k. This was from their suggested training plan and called Speed Play Run. Sounds fun, but believe me it wasn't. I had to complete 10 minutes at my usual speed then a 5-4-3-2-1 session (5mins hard effort, 90 seconds jog, 4min hard effort, 90 seconds jog and so on) then a final 10 minutes run at my usual speed. After the first 5 min fast run I was completely knackered so decided the jogging intervals would be two mins not 90 seconds, but I still struggled to recover enough, my mouth felt dry, and my fast runs just got slower and slower.
But I completed the run, and it was a lovely morning for it - the sun was out making dappled patterns as it shone through the canopy of overhanging trees. Soon I was completing my five minute walk back to the car tired and thirsty but pleased that I'd persevered. Despite being parched, I put off opening the car and grabbing my water bottle as I knew I needed to finish off with my stretches especially after putting in the extra effort.
And then I was done, opened the car, reached in for the towel, to mop myself down, and, with mouth now as dry as the Sahara, looked to get my water bottle...
Could I see it? I though it was under my running jacket - which I'd left in the car - but no... I started looking under the seats and even checked the boot. Desperately in need of rehydration having covered 9.5km in all, I was now on my knees reaching as far as I could underneath the front seats, from in front and then from behind.
Finally I resigned myself that my lack of faffage at the start of the morning must have meant that I'd left the water bottle at home ( a 15 minute drive away), and to add insult to injury (as my mother would have said) I looked across the road and saw the name of the shop in big letters, "total soft water" a shop specialising in water coolers etc. A delivery van was unloading large bottles of water... All that water, and not a drop for me!
week3run1 ✅. 3 x 17 mins with 1 min walks. 
How did your parkrun or (not)parkrun go?
