Hi All I normally lurk rather than participate, but a comment on the forum prompted me to find out who Mr Bennet was.
I normally pound the mean streets of South London running for just over an hour seems to be my sweet spot. This gets me into the 8/9km region, so not a fast pace more a relaxed jog through the city streets. I’ve never been bothered by my speed, reasoning it is what it is and with continuing to run my speed and fitness would improve over time. I quite like discovering the joy of finding new routes in my local area and that ‘I never knew that route would lead me here’, serendipity moment.
Roll on to the discovery of Park Run (I’m now on run five) and there is that bit in me asking the question can I run faster? It’s fun running with other people, even though almost seventy years old I’d still like to improve my 5km time which currently stands at about 35mins.
Enter that nice Mr Bennet and his beginners 5km plan.
I wasn’t certain how I would enjoy having a trainer, but this has motivated me to reassess what I can achieve. So week one completed and thank goodness Mr Bennet tells me I can run these anyway I like, so speed work and then long run completed one after the other then a rest day then again combining the two sessions.
I did rather find that combining the two sessions from week one into one continuous session was more tiring than just running longer distances, but it’s early days and as the sessions continue I may well have to split the sessions up into multiple days. So roll on week 2 of the 8 week plan and let’s see if there is any improvement in my 5k time.
I did rather enjoy celebration pace, where that is on the perceived level of exertion is a mystery to me. All I know is at that moment in time I couldn’t run any quicker. My Fitbit doesn’t give me that kind of feedback, just distance travelled and number of steps taken after the fact, it should have a joy setting as well as celebration pace was short but fun.
Parkrun didn’t go quite to plan. In my head I thought my NRC beginners 5km training would boost my speed - wrong. I was slower than the previous week. It’s early days yet and here comes the excuse. One section was very wet with water over the top of my shoes and I had that squelchy experience between my toes and that was just lap one. By the time lap three had come I was amazed how much heavier my feet felt. I also discovered running in a plastic blouson to ward off the rain isn’t good, dry from the rain but rather unpleasant inside it. You’ll be please to hear I abandoned the blouson with a friendly marshal to be retrieved later after the race.
Outcome of parkrun, slower at about 38mins and I’ve even dropped another place in my age group now third. Never mind there is always next week!
Two questions if I may, what options are there for very wet feet ditto a better rain jacket? My budget is low.
If you read all they way through this you’ve done better than me and now back to lurking.
Spurred on by you lot
NRC - A Grateful 8K
