I did something this week that I've been thinking about for a while, and it's something that on the surface doesn't seem like a big deal. I changed my home parkrun from Riddlesdown to Dartford. Accompanied with this change was a sense of guilt and a feeling that I had abandoned the people and venue that had been my home for the last three years.
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| volunteers [photo:7t] |
However, things have changed and it now seems right that Dartford should be listed as my home. So with that done and my foot feeling a little better, I added in a few slow runs during the week and am pleased to say that my foot is still feeling fine, but I've been amazed at how quickly my fitness appears to have dropped off.
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| about 1.5k in and starting to feel it [photo: gary bignell] |
This week the lack of running really started to show during the parkrun. I started off a little slower than usual but I just couldn't get going, I was knackered half-way around and I was getting slower every kilometre. I crossed the line in
20.09 which is my worst finish time in over six months.
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| heading towards the finish [photo: gary bignell] |
I could blame my bad run on a lack of running, my double cycle commute (there and back) which resulted in 64 kilometres of cycling the day before the run which could have left my legs a little lifeless, or it could have been the freakishly humid mid-October weather. Probably a combination of all three.
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| scanning time [photo: gary bignell] |
To be honest, I don't really have a lot of bad parkruns so it was time for one to come around. Of course there's always next week and maybe with the foot feeling better I can actually start getting back into some proper training. So this is one run that I'd like to forget.
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| some finish tokens [photo:7t] |
Thankfully parkrun is about more than just running and it was great to be out on a Saturday morning with over 100 like minded people. I finished my run and picked up my scanning gear, and after a few minutes the conversations were flowing and I had partially forgotten about my bad run.
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| richey and tessa manually entering the times [photo:7t] |
Then after the course had been cleared away and the kit put back into its storage container I headed into the clubhouse where I discovered that there were problems with the software for the stopwatches, which meant they wouldn't connect to the laptop. In the end Richey and Tessa added the 103 times manually. So Dartford parkrun 13 is done and dusted and apart from the slight tech problem and my bad run it all went extremely well. I can't wait to do it all over again next week.
