So.. I met Adam and Richey for a short bodyweight workout before getting onto the course set-up. We only really had time to throw in some chin-ups, push-ups and some planking before we had to sort out the course.
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| about 200 metres into dp43 [photo: tessa] |
I had brought a few sticks of chalk with me again and I marked the kilometre points on the course while we were setting up. I also added a few motivational messages which seemed to go down well.
I even found out that the chalk works on the big green box which is right on the first kilometre point so I marked that up as well.
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| the first kilometre marker [photo: 7t] |
About 20 minutes before the start of the run I was seriously considering giving it a miss and hanging around at DpHQ with the rest of the hi-vis gang.
I was feeling a little unmotivated. Also my knee issue has not really cleared up properly and I should probably be focusing more on a prolonged period of rest rather than continuing the 'run-a-little, rest-a-little' pattern which has been my ongoing theme since January.
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| one of my motivational messages [photo: 7t] |
However, I find it really difficult to stop completely especially when my whole life seems to revolve around a constant stream of tempting training days and running events which I hate having to miss.
And although parkrun is a great thing, there is an addictive undercurrent to it and I always end up too tempted into running than to actually sit back and take a proper break. The knee never hurts so much that I can't run and never so little that I feel fine.
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| on the final stretch of tarmac [photo: gary] |
So temptation got the better of me and I did run. At first I started at a fairly sedate pace before remembering that I was down on the roster as one of the barcode scanners so I pulled my thumb out and increased the pace a little to get back the DpHQ in just over 21 minutes.
This was a few minutes ahead of the bulk of the runners and gave me enough time to slip into my hi-vis jacket and grab the scanner before zapping away. The sunlight was bright and threw up a few issues but I only had one non-scanning barcode which was mostly to do with the printing quality rather than the sunlight.
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| tail runners [photo: 7t] |
Dani and Matilda had swapped their usual volunteering role as marshals on Stones Corner to act as tail runners for the day. It was Dani's 19th overall parkrun and Matilda's 2nd, which sits alongside her 12 junior parkruns - She's actually gone off of the junior parkruns at the moment - every Sunday morning I ask her the same 'are we going to junior parkrun?' question and she simply replies with 'not today, daddy'.
Once the majority of the runners had made it through the finish line I headed out onto the course to collect a some of the course signage and then ran the final stretch with Matilda. which was nice. She had a few tough moments around the course but finished with a big smile on her face as she set a new 5k personal best time of 48.15.
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| me and terry back at dphq with the signs [photo: harley] |
Then I met up with Terry and continued the signage collection while we relived the tales of our respective parkruns that morning. With that done we had a little volunteer photocall. This was followed up with a slice of '5,000th run at Dartford parkrun' cake which I understand Richey made while he was a little tipsy the evening beforehand.
