Saturday was a good day for a lot of Parkrunners, it seems, and in near-perfect conditions on Southsea Prom I managed my best time and first sub-24 since hockey took over from running for the winter in Sep 2015. My watch gave me a set of negative (?) splits – 4’59”, 4’51”, 4’47”, 4’44” and 4’35” for a 23’56” total. Well pleased! And a PB for Dexy5 too 😊.
Monday saw me back on the prom fartlekking. A gentle 7’30” K with Dexy, then 5 reps of 30:20:10s covering most of the next K, a very gentle recovery back in company to the 2.5k point, 5 more reps and a gentle toddle to make up the 4k. Plus a bit of a walk and a final gentle K with Dexy making up her target distance.
Wednesday – the long one (8k for the first time), back on the Billy Trail on Hayling Island. A bit trepidatious as a poor decision to visit the local curry house on Tuesday evening had been followed by worse menu selections, and a beer or two 😊 ☹. So a gentle start with Dexy was welcome, but after 500m nature called to her from the woods and she answered, leaving me alone and unpaced ….. I tried to keep the pace down to the end of K1, and got there in 6’45”. The intention was then to try for 6k at 5’30” per k (not having run further than 5k at a canter for years) and trot the last k in whatever. But as the Malabar Sea Bass and Kingfishers began to lose their grip on my legs and lungs, K2 came in at 5’28” and the splits consistently negative, until K7 slipped by in 5’02”. Trot the last k? – oh sod it, let’s see what happens – 4’45”!! and an 8k total of 43’10”.
Have to say I’m a little chuffed 😊 with the way things are going. But then I did start from being able to do Parkrun in close to 25 minutes, not from the couch, so my improvements don’t hold a candle to the journey many of my bridgemates have made in a few months. And a big thank you to Ju-Ju for providing an achievable template to keep me going. Next week will be a bit different, as I’m volunteering at Parkrun on Saturday and unlikely to run solo afterwards, so the 5k will be run 3 on Saturday week. Until then, onward and upward – on the level of course 😊.
Oops Wk4 of magic plan ‘over ran’
Week 1 on the bridge complete
Week 5 Run2 - 8k done
