In my own particular way, I never make things easy. I knew I would be on for 50 parkruns by early September. What I didn’t estimate was my body rebelling over the HM training I’m trying to do, my mum having an operation the day before and the imminent 10k race the next day. So, I’ve been quite quiet about this as I wasn’t convinced it was going to happen today.
Thankfully my mum’s operation went well so I wasn’t needed and my body is behaving itself (if a little grumpy). Can’t say about the 10k tomorrow but I took parkrun as gently as I could...
Dressing up wasn’t as quite as bold as Dexy5 and co last week. I suppose we could have dressed up as characters from one of Shakespeare’s plays but they do that so much better the other side of the river. So we dressed as cats, nice and simple and runable in. I was the only one with a tail though (naturally!).
For once we all set off at the back of the field. I haven’t done that since my first few so it felt a bit odd. But it was nice to set off slowly rather than the bull in a china shop version I usually do and I was able to chat all the 3 laps. There were also about 150 less runners than last week - what a difference the end of the holidays make to a tourism town.
Not all parkruns have milestone bibs but we have these for the 10s, V25, 50, 100 & 250 and birthdays. I expect at some point we’ll have a 500 as well. They are presented during the Run Director’s talk at the start and they are a great opportunity to feel really embarrassed 😳😳😳. You can run but you can’t hide at Stratford upon Avon - they’ll get you if you’re on the list!! Simon the Event Director had had great fun totally embarrassing me a few weeks earlier when I got my V25, so I was prepared for it this time - but he wasn’t there! Nat the Run Director was lovely though!!
Because you’re running in this bib you get a lot of people congratulating you on your way round, which was great. I’ve never chatted to so many people at our parkrun before, I usually just quietly do my thing.
So, we ran round as much as a family as we could. Youngest kitten ran off on the last lap but Katnap and I weren’t far behind. We ran down the finishing straight hand in hand which we hadn’t done since his first parkrun late last year. That was really nice and he goes so fast down it now that I got a PB for that segment on Strava! Eldest kitten came in a few minutes later. He’s currently experimenting with Jeffing (5 minutes running & 1 minute walking) and it seems to be working for him - he had loads left in the tank for a very speedy last 100m and his times are coming down.
One more Stratford-upon-Avon run before a short break, then it’s Lyme Park for a VRB meet up with Pianism and more on October 5th. Who’s up for it?!!
Missed quite a few Parkruns this summer 😢
Birthday “parkruns”
