Saturday 14 January 2012

Riddlesdown parkrun thirty-one (Janathon day 14)

A wonderful frosty scene awaited us as we arrived at Riddlesdown for the 31st running of the parkrun. If we weren't so late I would have spent more time admiring the beauty before me. Instead I had a 'panic run' to the start line!

Frosty things [photos: Pete Gibson]

Standing in the car park at 8.59am I hit the start button on my GPS running app (handy runner) to record my warm-up (panic-run) to the start line. 700 metres or so later I could hear the end of the pre-race announcements and 'timers are you ready?' and then 'ready... go'.

There was still about 100 metres and a big hedge between me and the start line. I like to record my warm-up and parkrun as two separate GPS entries. So without breaking my stride I stopped the warm-up GPS tracking and pressed upload. It finished uploading just before I hit the start line. I then started a new session just as I crossed the start line - perfect timing! I was a little behind the rest of the runners but there was no need to worry because, yet again, I wasn't 'racing'.

me (right) catching up with the rest of the pack [photo: Pete Gibson]

I quickly caught up to the back markers, and while trying to say hello to as many people as possible worked my way through the field.

The last few weeks had seen quite muddy conditions but the lack of rain coupled with the sub-zero temperatures the night before had ensured that the ground was very hard (frozen).

this section has been quite muddy in recent weeks [photo: Pete Gibson]

On official photographer duty today was Pete, who will hopefully be back running soon. Thanks for the use of the photos - Brilliant again I might add! We are actually quite spoiled with our pool of willing and extremely able photographers.

I was quite relieved to see that the downs was almost free of dogs today - I don't feel particularly comfortable running in their unleashed presence.

lots of unintentional colour co-ordinating going on [photos: Pete Gibson]

I had worked my way through the field to 16th position when I noticed that there was quite a big gap between me and number 15. So I took my foot off the gas pedal and eased myself around to the finish line at just a shade over 23 minutes, where I was greeted by Mrs7t and the little green one.

I've spotted an example of nature working perfectly. In recent weeks my shoes have been full of mud and I had to spend time banging them together to remove it after running. This week the downs reclaimed the remaining mud from previous weeks and I left with them much cleaner than they arrived!

A bit of chat about Janathon and various other things and we were off to the pub for coffee, more running chat, and then finally some lunch.

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For the purpose of Janathon here is my total running for the day:

5.8km (27 minutes or so)


7t.

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