Once upon a time, Me & UpTheStanley, Oldgirlruns and Mr & Mrs Coddfish used to catch up on a Saturday morning at something called parkrun, and then have breakfast together. That was until COVID-19 went and spoiled it all. Recently we had been chatting about the need to get (not) together for a run, but due to my time on the IC and Coddfish finding it difficult to reach 5k during lockdown, it hadn’t happened . Then the perfect incentive came along - parkrun announced a (not)parkrun weekly event where we could enter our 5k times each week.
It only took a nano second for Coddfish to contact us and we set a day and time. Given our varied running pace and different locations in town, we would not start together. The aim was to reach the Southsea Beach Cafe at 1030.
Today was the day, and I will leave everyone to post their individual stories.
So parkrun red shirt on, I set off from the start of the road closure at 9.44 guessing that it would take me around 45 mins to do my 4k run, 500m walk and 1k run. UpTheStanley, in his black shirt, ran about 200m with me and then turned around as a warm up because he would be setting off later. I came across Oldgirlruns running towards me in her lilac shirt before I had completed 1.5k so I thought she would be reaching the finish way before me, unless she had changed her planned route. I could see Coddfish in an apricot shirt in front of me for quite a while but didn’t actually catch her until she was turning at her halfway point.
Mine is a story of various blonde moments as I’d calculated rightly that I had to go 2.75k before turning round but just before that point I realised that I had forgotten to set my music going so started my playlist a bit late! That’s better - a rhythm to run to. Further confused when my turning point coincided with meeting the dustmen so they cheered me on as I passed them and then I reappeared on the other side of their truck just as they were leaping out at the next collection point! No 2m margin there then. I was still running as UTS approached me and he thought I’d decided to run it all. Was it him who was confused or me?
I started my 500m walk, UTS overtook me and then i ran, whilst trying to work out whether I got my running and walking times right. Running and mental arithmetic doesn’t seem to work at the same time! Anyway, I ran a bit faster to make up for the dithering and reached the target finish at 10:25 with everyone else already there doing their stretches or nattering .
It was so good to run (not) together and have a takeaway coffee and pain au chocolat at a distance afterwards. From Saturday Oldgirlruns became part of our social bubble which makes life easier, so we were in 2 groups instead of 3.
Parkrun hasn’t come up with the (not) parkrun facility yet, but I’m left with the dilemma, do I calculate the times for the running 5k part , or do I enter the time of the first 5k? And do I get a prize for being at the target place closest to the target time?
