Riddlesdown parkrun thirteen (RDp13)

Joining me for today's parkrun was a good friend of mine, Terry. He is pretty new to running and had only run the full 5k four times before today.

With me running my first half-marathon the following day my original plan for the day was to run at about half-marathon race pace as a warmup for the following day's race. After a bit of thought I decided to scrap that plan and complete the whole parkrun with Terry. After all, it was his first event and I hadn't seen him for ages. It just felt wrong to go off and do my own thing.

Race director, Nicki, was out on the downs at 7am this morning with a rake trying to clear the pathways of the remains of the Riddlesdown harvest, which had resulted in large clumps of grass either causing or covering potential trip hazards.

nice easy start

We lined up at the back of the start funnel. We then had a moment of silence in memory of Mark Burtwell, who passed away recently. I didn't know him personally but he was very well known over at Banstead parkrun, and also a member of South London Harriers running club.

Then we started.

We moved off at a nice slow pace, easing ourselves into the run. With just under six minutes on the clock we hit the 1km mark. The pace was nice and easy and we chatted about this and that. I occasionally chipped in with some course or time information.

pushing hard

By the time we reached 2km we had increased the pace slightly and we were gradually picking off other runners.

We passed the half-way mark, I can't remember what our split was but we were faster than I thought we'd be to this point.

We looped back around and just after 3km I pointed out a runner that we decided we could catch before the end. At this point our ongoing conversation was halted in favour of increasing the effort. We actually caught him at the 4km point, so were very pleased with our progress.

pushing to the limit (and beyond)

After we overtook him I noticed that Terry didn't want to slow down again, from this point we continued to push the pace. Near the end I pushed slightly in front of Terry to give him some space to judge his own finishing straight pace. He pushed very hard and needed some alone time for a couple of minutes after the race.

We crossed the line in 45th and 46th positions. Our official times were 27:29 and 27:31.

post-race chat

 Our approximate kilometre splits were:

• 0-1km 5:55
• 1-2km 5:37
• 2-3km 5:30
• 3-4km 5:33
• 4-5km 4:52

Overall, a nice easy pre-half-marathon warm up run for me and a really impressive first 5k performance for Terry. Hopefully he'll be back soon!

all over for another week

After the race we went to the good companions pub for coffee, cake and bananas!

Steve.