Need for Speed

[christian1]

Only one week to go till I graduate. I have celebrated my progress by registering for Parkrun. Eeek! As I am definitely not going to even jog 2 miles when I do my 30 minutes, I need to build up a bit of speed before I actually join in. I have set myself the target of doing Parkrun by the end of September and want to do RFL next year. I'm getting ahead of myself - I have not even graduated yet!

On todays run I had 2 firsts. I tackled a 'hill'. Well it was definitely an upward gradient although a seasoned runner probably would not have noticed it. Also made an effort to go a bit faster each time I felt in control of my breathing. All the while in the pouring rain, wearing a rainproof jacket where I ended up almost as soggy inside, as out.

[KANdoit]

Go park run tomorrow ... you are emminently qualified already .. My first time it took 54 min ..walked most of it (thats allowed). Tend to do the thing in run3 min walk 1 min intervals myself as there is no way I could do the whole thing running. PB is 41:41 but I'm comming back from calf injury so i'll be SLOW tomorrow ..possibly last in an 800+ field

I've been in the last 3... go the finish and cheeres all to myself ..earth didn't open up to swallow me and I was just pleased to have got around.

The other this is that if you are slow tomorrow .. you will soon have the sweet experience of improving your PB

[christian1 Graduate in reply to KANdoit]

Wow, well done you. 800 at your local run! - at least theres only about 90 at mine.

I went and watched the parkrun today. I spotted the person at the back and thought "Yep, that'll be me when I pluck up courage to go". And I got a bit scared as it looked a looong way.

Good point about the PB! I will pluck up courage and go one of these days.

[KANdoit in reply to christian1]

I was 835 out of 839 today with a time of 45:04. I did run1walk1 intervals after the 5 min warm up walk. Sally Willis is a stalwart of Bushy Park run ( she's 60 ish) and has 160 parkruns to her name. She finished in just over an hour. She is a true inspiration for sheer dogged determination and sticking power (I got her permission to mention her name here today)

Are you able to have a walk of the Parkrun course some time during the week ... prove to yourself that you can get round it?

[esiotrot]

That sounds really interesting. I'm only on week 2 but I've signed up for a RFL (next year, plenty of time!) and I was looking at the Park Runs too, as there's one near me, but I need to be a bit further on! Would be interesting to hear if/when you try it though

[christian1 Graduate in reply to esiotrot]

I promise to blog about it when it happens.

[KANdoit in reply to esiotrot]

If you can handle walking for about an hour you should be able to get around a parkrun .. probably with quite a bit of time to spare. If you get a slow PB now you will see how c25k really improves your fitness. You could do your c25k podcast and then walk the rest. Its what I did in the early Parkruns