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Another run this week and yet more torrential rain (yay!); it's rained for pretty much 2 days straight and the ground was absolutely sodden. There were places on the route that had puddles that went up to my ankles and were pretty much unavoidable - it felt like we were doing a steeplechase jump every so often, and it definitely added some serious weight to log around the course so it made it very tough going. Last week's effort I ran a new PB of 21:03, and this week I've run another PB of 20:49 (I did give myself a target to run 20:30 or slower and get into the top 40, but I only managed the position target!). I'm really happy with what I put forward today, I was still feeling my long run from Tuesday (the reason I chose not to run on Thursday) so to set another PB with a pretty drained body is a good sign. Somehow every week I can run faster and faster, and if that was a completely dry course out there today I have no doubt in saying that it would have been very close to a 20-minute effort.
I remembered my mistake from last week and positioned myself pretty close to the front of the pack, and headed off at a fast pace of ~ 3:40m/km in order to get myself as far forward in the field as possible. I was around 15th after the first lap and that just shows how many runners get caught up at the start by having to clear through slower runners/walkers - I even set a new PR on the Strava Segment 'Eaton Park Run 1 rectangular lap' on the first lap. The second lap I eased the pace down and tried to stick to running at 4:05m/km (what I had planned to stick to before the run as I felt it was the best chance for me to run ~ 20:30). Unfortunately, when it came up to the 3rd and 4th kilometres, I became very fatigued and it was really tough going from there on out, I was trying to up my pace back to ~ 4:05m/km but I just couldn't. It definitely didn't help we had some pretty obnoxious slower runners not keeping to the right of the course and getting in our way at almost every opportunity (obviously they have no less of a right to run where they choose to, but it's common courtesy to get out of the path of the faster runners to pass by). With about 700m to go I was passed by the eventual 39th finisher and he gave me some encouragement to keep going and it gave me the energy to ramp my pace up back to closer to ~ 4:05m/km - we ran side by side for about 400m before he started pulling away and had a 10 second or so advantage with 300m or so to go. The eventual 41st placed finisher passed me with 200m to go and I gave it everything, we were in what seemed a very competitive sprint and caught up to the 39th finisher (who finished just a second in front of me), and although I beat the 41st finisher, we finished on the same time! I just love the fact you can have a sprint finish with a random stranger, and I'm loving the Parkrun community more and more with every run.
I have a 4,000-word piece of coursework to write for Thursday and another 2,000-word piece for next Wednesday, so I'm not sure how much I can get out and run this week. I'll probably cut down to just 10km this week, and it will definitely serve as some good rest before my Pre-Training Marathon Training starts! I'm also interested in upgrading my shoes to a pair of Hoka One One Clifton 4s, so it'll give me a chance to break those in if I do buy them.
Thanks for reading! :)
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