A Tale of 2 Runs

[sTrongFuse]

OK, I know the "F" word is strictly verbotten here, but there is no other word that can be used to describe the first bit of this morning.

Wasn't really in the right frame of mind but headed off to one of my local parkruns anyway, thinking it might help me recalibrate. Unfortunately, it only managed to make things worse.

Got everything wrong. Allowed myself to get caught up in the surge of faster runners at the start and the inevitable happened...

Yes, so I got PBs for 400m, 1km, ½ mile and 1 mile, so that's kind of great in a way, but I bombed out at just over 1.9km; nothing left, in the tank, all gone.

The thing is, I knew I was too fast but it was just one of those ones where, try as hard as I could, I just couldn't reset my pace; no matter no consciously I slowed myself down, unconsciously, I kept speeding back up. There was only ever going to be one outcome and I left feeling mightily fed up (I would use a stronger term, but this is a family forum). I'd even managed to leave my wallet at home so there wasn't even the post-run pick-me-up in the cafe afterwards.

10 minute drive home. Feeling slightly more balanced and still fairly warmed up, went to the loo, had a glass of water and decided I may as well try to collect the missing kilometres with a light jog around the village.

36 minutes later, I found myself back at my front door having run a full 5k in one of my fastest times and trying to figure out where that had come from.

So, across the two runs, I managed just shy of 7k in 48 minutes, which I'm not going to complain about, but why did I have to make such a mess things at the start?

[Debston Graduate]

Well, you know what went wrong with the Parkrun, so I won't repeat what you already know. But well done you for getting back on it and having a great second run and maybe it was just the spontaneous nature of it that made it such a good one for you. Sometimes we just need a no pressure, just for fun run, to see what we can really do!

[sTrongFuse Graduate in reply to Debston]

Definitely. I also needed to get the frustration of earlier out of my system. I think that, the fact that I was back to just running on my own, and running through familiar landmarks just made it all come together.

[IannodaTruffe Mentor]

Every run is training for the next one........... wherever you are in your running journey.

You knew you were too fast and that you will have to slow down to a sustainable pace to complete 5k.........that has surely been reinforced, so a lesson is learned and in my book that is not a fail in any sense of the word.

Your parkrun misrun warmed up your muscles, dilated your blood vessels, lubricated your joints and got you pretty much over the toxic ten, which is why your second run, at a more sensible pace was a success.

Running is often a case of mind over matter, but we do have to engage our brains to consciously prevent ourselves from pushing too hard, especially in the first minutes of a run.

Pacing is one of the toughest lessons to learn, for any runner.

[sTrongFuse Graduate in reply to IannodaTruffe]

To be honest, I was thinking of a much stronger term than "fail", but as I said, it's a family forum... I was screaming at myself (internally) to slow down the whole time, but my legs were just determined to do their own thing anyway. I do hope they've learned their lesson...

[Buddy34 Graduate]

Like you said you got caught up in the moment of the faster runners and joined in which didn't work you got home reset your body and ran well . You went out ran again probably at a better pace and you did it well done 😊😊

[sTrongFuse Graduate in reply to Buddy34]

It was definitely done at much nearer my usual pace of around 7 mins/km. None of this sub 5:50/km nonsense that I was hitting on the first run. If I never manage to beat that time for a single km again, I'll still be elated.

[Dottie_D Graduate]

It’s so tempting to gallop off with the herd but you now know not to do that next time lol. I’ve done the same in the past and still feel tempted to get in middle of group at start even knowing I’m one of the slowest runners. More recently I stare at the back and make myself stay there for at least 10 mins. Then I tend to realise that I’m in my steady pace, that’s it, and so plod on to the end 😂😂

[sTrongFuse Graduate in reply to Dottie_D]

It was an odd one. As is my custom, I kept to the left so people could overtake me, but I just couldn't find my regular pace no matter how many times I hit reset. Just wasn't meant to be, I guess. At least I managed to get a good run in when I got home.

[Dottie_D Graduate in reply to sTrongFuse]

That was amazing, there is no way I’d have got going again 😂😂 well done you should be proud of your resilience and determination 👍🏼

[notquiteretired Graduate]

your human, we all make mistakes, they help us learn how to do things better next time. You started badly but still managed to turn things round and end on a high 🙌

well done , enjoy the rest of your day👍😊