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Such a beautiful morning to go for a run with not a single cloud in sight and temperatures already reaching 17 degrees. I had wanted to attempt to run a sub-20 minute Parkrun this morning and had been targeting it all week. Unfortunately, I didn't feel 100% when I woke up and barely stomached my breakfast. I was very tempted to go back to sleep and get some rest but still managed to get myself to the start line with a 20-minute effort in mind. Last week I ran 20:49 in torrential rain and I would have to cut 49 seconds off that time in order to attempt my target. I didn't manage to break 20 minutes but managed to set a new PB with a time of 20:33, so I'm not overly disappointed.
I felt like I had got off to a good start and I thought I was very well on track at the 2nd km, but I didn't have the energy to keep my pace up for the rest of the effort. In the 4th km I ran out of juice completely and almost had to stop for a walking break, but I suffered (with my HR in the high 190s) to finish in 20:33. I'll be a bit more realistic and say within the next 4 weeks I want to smash that 20-minute boundary, but this is yet another successive PB which shows that I'm improving week on week. 4 weeks ago I struggled to get around the 5km course in less than 22 minutes, but now I'm knocking on the door to run sub-20 minutes...
It was pretty packed today with over 600 runners & walkers braving the heat, meaning that it was a little bit of a struggle at the start to pass through the field. My tactics were to run a pace of 3:50m/km for 3km's and then struggle around the last 2km and hopefully set a sub-20 minute PB. I ran 3:44, 4:00 and 4:11 for the first 3km's respectively - meaning that I had about 5 seconds in the bank and felt that it was definitely possible, but it would require some effort. In the 4th km, I ran out of steam completely, only managing a pace of 4:29m/km. One thing I have noticed is when I get really fatigued I tend to never drop below a certain pace - it used to be in the range of 4:45m/km - 5:00m/km but it's getting faster and faster. My tempo speed is improving and with that this 'lower-level fatigue pace' is too! Although these efforts aren't even close to the mileage I'll be running in my Half Marathon next month, or my Marathon in October, it does give me an idea of what pace I'll realistically be able to manage across the routes.
I'm heading home for a week tomorrow morning so I'll probably make use of all the trails around my home and give my legs a break from the hard-surface that predominantly makes up my Norwich routes.
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