Well, well, well after my last post of doom and gloom, illness, aborted runs, breathlessness, cardiac clinic, then finishing with a successful comfortable parkrun this week's parkrun was a bit of a shock.
Porthcawl parkrun was celebrating St David's Day, with runners and volunteers dressed in a myriad of daffodils, dragons, Welsh rugby shirts, Welsh costumes. I obviously forgot and was dressed in my new club shirt, Ron Hill jacket, compression socks, leggings Asic's Besties and thinsulate bobble hat. I plugged into my music and Strava; in one ear only. I started with my mate Gareth (English) but born on 1st March hence name.
I noticed after 0.5k that I had no pace report from Strava, checked my phone to make sure it was recording, it was so I put it back in my pocket and settled for no updates but the soothing sounds of a shuffled playlist of Cream and Nickelback(some of Nickelback is soothing 😂).
We were chatting reasonably well so I was not bothered by the pace, breathing comfortably.
Roughly at 2k there's a hill which you come back up after turning. My approach is usually to slow down, shorter paces and eyes down. Occasionally I have to attack it, well at least until the breathing gets too strenuous. Today I attacked, slotting in behind a daffodil and a Welsh coloured clown wig and 2 other ladies who were nattering quite happily. Unfortunately I lost my St David, sorry Gareth.
Eventually I got back to the lower promenade and the horrible view of the finish line which you have to run past with still about 0.5k to go. Oh the gremlins tell me cheat, cheat, cheat 😂 😂
Having crossed the line, stopped Strava, scanned my bar code and finish token, I then bumped into the chairman of my new club who, as always, was very interested in how you did. I told him I wasn't sure as I hadn't looked at Strava yet. The signal can be iffy on the prom.
We eventually got it to load and could see it showed 28.11 a new PB. On closer examination of acheivement I could see my 5k time was 27.58. I couldn't believe it I knew my PR time would be different, it was 28.28 which also gave me a parkrun PB.
I know there will be downers and illness again along my running life but when it goes well, well you become one of those boring righteous runners who just want to tell everyone about it 😂 😂 😂
Boy Tim did I smile! Or should that be, Boy'o Tim did I smile 😁🏃♀️🏃♂️🏃
week3run1 ✅. 3 x 17 mins with 1 min walks. 
How did your parkrun or (not)parkrun go?
