Parkrun and a bit more than going through the motions

[wilmacgh]

The appalling pun in the title is because when I got to the carpark at Cramond in Edinburgh for my local Parkrun it was so wet that the water treatment works which deals with sewage and pumps it out to sea was overflowing. The drain was a fountain pushing the cover up and water was pouring out of the double doors a foot or so up.

I walked up to the start wondering if the event would actually happen. There was a group standing by the tree where the briefings are done. The start was awash. Then someone said go and we were off.

To give you some idea of the course, it runs along the esplanade a broad tarmac track between fields and the sea. There's a bank maybe 30m high running along on the land side - a raised beach maybe if I remember school geography. What this means is there are lots of little streams and ditches finding their way to the sea and all of them were over flowing today. Although the path wasn't totally submerged there were plenty places under water for several metres and the steps down to the beach were like waterfalls.

There was no chance of keeping my feet dry but actually I found my trainers coped well. The mesh is light enough that they don't hold the water and they gripped fine on the ground. It kept my feet cool too. I had been hoping to get to the magic 5k in 30min today but as I went along I was thinking to myself that it wasn't on. I had the week 9 podcast on headphones (with my ipod, phone and keys in a plastic bag in my pocket) and when Laura said 5min to go I was at about 4k. As I came up to the finish I was really beginning to fade and walked a bit only to find out that because the banner wasn't up I was still not quite there. I pushed myself to run again to the end. Turns out I did it in 31.12. I was a bit annoyed with myself because of I had stuck at it at the end I might have managed under 31min if not 30min. So the other part of the corny title was that even in the most unlikely conditions it's worth making the effort. I actually quite enjoyed it in a "this is mad" way.

When I got home all my gear including trainers went in the washing machine and I had a good long shower just in case there were any nasties in that brown water!

[Legion Graduate]

Well done. Stunning time, especially in crap *ahem* conditions. Have you done many parkruns? I've only just completed week 1, but I'm already thinking ahead to the time when I can actually run 5k (I hope). It's great that you managed to enjoy your run, despite less than ideal weather. Better than a heatwave though, perhaps?

[wilmacgh Graduate in reply to Legion]

That was Parkrun number 6 and I did Race for Life in May too.

Really a fan of Parkrun. Everyone is very friendly and supportive. It's also very efficiently run and you get your result later in the day along with all sorts of stats. They do some sort of age corrected % figure which I don't really understand but I like the fact that my 58% at 31minutes seems to mean I'm actually doing better than the yougsters who do it in 25min.

[Jimbob74 Graduate]

Well done, excellent time, you should be very pleased with that. I am sure next time you will break the 30 mins 5 k benchmark. Keep it up

[Oldgirl Graduate]

Well done on your time in such bad weather conditions. Sounds pretty much the same as we had up here in Aberdeen, where 's our summer gone!?!

[RhonaL]

Weather the same in Somerset. Brill time in those conditions. Salute to you - I think I would have turned tail and found a coffee shop ...