Dartford parkrun 38 - all the fun of the fair (and pacing. don't forget the pacing)

A bit of a surprise this week was when I received a message showing a poster promoting a fun fair that was due to arrive in Central Park on Wednesday and stay until Sunday. At first I was a little worried that their set-up could infringe on part of the route we use for our weekly five kilometre jog around the park.

the fair rides were all on the grass so we didn't have to dodgem [photo:7t]

So after work on Wednesday I popped over to the park to check it out. The fun fair was contained within the grass areas adjacent to the bandstand and thankfully left all of the paths nice and clear. Fast forward to Saturday morning and everything still looked good when I met Richey (ED) in the park.

Once all the gear was unpacked it became apparent that the hi-vis vests had been taken away for a wash, but were at Adam's house. The thing is, Adam had other plans and couldn't make it to parkrun this week. Thankfully Dartford Harriers A.C saved the day by letting us use some of their vests.

a nice little 21 minute pacing crew [photo: brian page]

The main thing that was exciting me at this event was the fact that it was pacers day. This time around we had 8 pacer volunteers, which was the best turnout so far. Again I went for the 21 minute pacing slot, which I find is a brilliant pace for me to run at and picks up a few more pacees than anything faster.

So the plan was to leave the Garmin at home and just check my kilometre splits as I reached the km points around the course using my stopwatch. Even splits for a 21 inute finsih would be 4.12 per kilometre, but because the course isn't flat, the splits for an even effort run aren't even.

an extreme take on my love of angled photos [photo: brian page]

This plan was to go for; 4.12 / 4.02 / 4.12 / 4.22 / 4.12 which I find is quite a fair way to run based on the profile of the course. When pacing I always check my time at the 500 metre point and I hit it at about 1.56 which is about 10 seconds in front of what the plan suggests, but starts tend to be a little quicker than the average pace and it allowed me to progress up the incline with ease.

I hit the 1 kilometre point in 4.10, which wasn't too shabby. The next kilometre is usually my quickest because it features a downhill which allows for a slightly faster pace without increasing the effort level. I worked my way round and reached the 2 kilometre point at 8.12 which made that split a 4.02, which was spot on.

completing the first lap [photo: ella smith]

Now the third kilometre is where I fluffed it up. I didn't drop the effort level back to 4.12 pace and I ended up putting in a 4.01 split. Realising my mistake, I eased off a little for the fourth kilometre and put in a 4.22 split, which was just as planned. However I was still about 10 seconds ahead of where I should have been.

I tried to ease off even more for the final kilometre and despite feeling like I was taking things really easy, I put in 4.11. Which was perfect pace-wise but meant I was still approximately 10 seconds ahead of schedule. I finally crossed the line in 20.51. That is inside my 1% tolerance so I was happy enough.... but I'm not happy with the third kilometre split that I put in. I'll work on that next time!

stopping my watch at the finish line [photo: ella smith]

This week also featured a parkrun bake-off (that I had completely forgotten about until Richey reminded me the night before) so there was a nice selection of sweet treats on the tables for everyone to help themselves to. Can't really complain about that!

And that was how Dartford parkrun 38 panned out for me...

cake for no reason other than we decided to have a bake-off [photo: 7t]

... I honestly can't wait to do it all over again next week.