I was struggling to stay motivated to run without parkrun each weekend. So I decided to try to run every day during April as a challenge and to stay motivated. I ran 5K for 9 days in a row, however started to get some pain and discomfort in my calves after the run. So I decided to listen to my body and I rested up for 2 days. I went back out this afternoon and ran a lovely comfortable 5K, pain free and I really enjoyed it. So I’ll just stick to every second day now. No point in risking an injury for a personal challenge.
My little parkrun tourist group on WhatsApp have decided to do a virtual parkrun every Saturday morning at our usual parkrun time followed by a virtual post parkrun coffee. We will each do our own individual 5K runs on Saturday morning and post our results.
I thought it might be a nice idea to do it here too. Let me know what you think.
Damien
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damienair
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Very sensible 😀 nothing worse than pushing yourself into an injury and sitting on the IC think if only. That’s a nice 👍🏻 idea about a virtual park run 🏃🏼♀️
That is a wise decision Damien on suggesting that we do a "virtual parkrun" on a Saturday morning at the time that parkruns are run but NOT at the place they are held, I have been running a 5K every Saturday morning at 9.30 since my last official Parkrun, which was my 17th locally near to where I live.
No not at a parkrun course. Just a 5K within your locality. We could just come together to post our little run reports like any other regular Saturday morning when parkrun is on. It would be a positive way to connect and stay motivated.
A virtual Parkrun report could look like something like this (a report of the 5K I ran on Saturday 18th April)
"Place" parkrun results for event No. 5(for the place that you run your virtual Parkrun) Your time was 33.45.
Congratulations on completing your 5th virtual parkrun at (the place where you run) today. You finished in 1st place and were the 1st male out of a field of 1 virtual park runner, you came 1st in your age category, (whatever age you are)
You achieved an age grade of (?) etc, etc. I wonder how many people will take up your suggestion Damion, good idea, as I say I have been running virtual 5K parkruns since the official ones were stopped.
PS, what I could do is keep this post, edit as I do the runs at the 'more' part, e.g if I go back to the first 'virtual run' I did on the 21st March:-33.21
the 28th March:-33.25
the 4th April :-34.13
the 11th April :- 33.54
the 18th April :-33.45
As the weeks go on I'll put my times here, you notice that they are quite similar to my official parkrun times, I like to get a sub 35 minute 5K, not too bothered about sub 30 .
The virtual runs are accompanied by my metronome app at about 175 beats/steps/cadence a minute.
For myself, I agree that it is probably best to have one 'rest' day between two running days. By that I mean doing no more than easy walking for about half a hour. Since parkrun is suspended, there is no need to specially reserve Saturday for the fixed 5k timed run. Instead, on a two day on-off pattern, my running exercise will only be on a Saturday every alternate week. I want to slowly improve from where C25k left me, with a 5k time of around 34 minutes, to being able to run both faster and further. My strategy is to start doing one longer run a week, either on the Saturday or Sunday. I have set my target as bridging to running the 10k distance, over an extended period of time. Currently, I jog/run out for 5km then do a loop and walk back the 5km, so I become used to the greater distance. My objective is to gradually increase my running time, so I run further and walk less. My emphasis is likely to remain on total running distance, rather than speed, to avoid injury.
That seems a good plan. I increased to 10K using Polyrunner. These are of increasing bpm and in 10 minute sections with an optional 1 minute walk between runs.
I worked through the speeds, increasing by 10 minutes a week until I completed the hour. Then I moved up to the next speed. By the end I wasn't far off the 10K and was ready for my first (and only, so far) race.
What a fantastic idea Damien! Who knew “virtual” would be the new reality?
Smart move cutting back to running 5k every other day if your body is telling you to. What you don’t want at the moment is to be stuck on the IC knowing you could have prevented it. 👍
We have a local parkrun tourist WhatsApp group as well, including some from this forum (Pianism, Baddiethepirate, Sharuns, Ssasqueen) plus some friends. Some of us have been running non-parkruns and having post-non-parkrun breakfasts.
Geoff and I have been running the same route each Saturday so that we can collect pb's - or not!
I hope this doesn't go on long enough that we need to get t-shirts
Yes I know, I wish for the day that parkrun and all that was normal comes back again. I hope that we get out of this over the coming months. I won’t be taking anything for granted.
Well done on your run streak. I might mention the Virtual parkrun again on Friday morning and then we can post up our post virtual parkrun run reports on Saturday morning.
It’ll be another 3 weeks before I can run but I can volunteer to cheer you on and shake my tambourine. I look forward to reading your post run reports. We were meant to be doing a parkrun meet up in Southampton this weekend , the 2nd one we’ve missed since lock down.
Please don’t get injured now damienair- physiotherapy is not available for new injuries.
Well, I can’t run at the moment (domestic duties), but I’d love to read all the reports! Maybe I can supply virtual cakes? 😄🧁🍰 Anyway, I think it sounds an excellent idea. 🎉👍
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