May 7th was the date of the inaugural Abingdon parkrun. Parkruns are free to enter 5km timed runs which are springing up all over the UK, they are ‘all comers’ events run by dedicated volunteers. I’d not participated in one before and was pleased that we were to have such an event in easy cycling distance. Identification of the runner is done by barcode rather than race number and once registered on the parkrun website the barcode is valid for any parkrun.

After over a month without rain it chucked it down on the Friday night and I got a good soaking cycling out to Abingdon. I found the Rye Meadows venue easy enough and the rain stopped so I stripped down to shorts and vest in the carpark and made my way to the start looking out in vain for Matt who had said he’d give it a go.

There were about 50 of us plus a few supporters and the Town Crier. A bit of a briefing in which we were warned not to fall in the Thames and then ‘ready, steady, go’ and we were off!

I immediately passed a few runners who looked a bit slow and then had to work a bit to pass 2 young lads who I thought had gone off much too fast. Along a grassy track, down a bit of Thames path – I was really having to push the pace to stop those in front from increasing the gap. I glanced down at my Garmin and realised I was running a totally unsustainable 6:30 mile/minute pace and eased a bit as we went through a gate then followed a short grass track through a meadow of taller wet grass. The rain started coming down again with a vengeance – it was warm enough not to be a problem and felt good after all those weeks of hot and dry.

We circled back near the start along a tarmac road and somewhere about the halfway point one of the lads passed me, then the other, for a moment I thought they were just playing and hadn’t followed the course. That bit of self assurance fell away soon enough when I realised they were dead serious and I was not going to catch them again. I eased a bit more so my lungs and heart could settle back into my ribcage and bemoaned my being passed by a kid to a young lady (who later turned out to be Carrie) who owned up to spurring them on by threatening them with being overtaken by a girlie. I claimed no such sense of honour and let her know I was a strong believer in ladies first!

So surrendering a couple more places I carried on as fast as I could and got a shout from Matt who was waiting at the finish. Those that know him would be totally unsurprised that he’d managed to miss the start. I was handed a 2nd barcode token in the finish funnel which I presented to a chap called Chris along with my personal barcode. My Garmin reckoned 23min 39sec which was close enough to the 23:37 time I was credited when the results appeared on-line a few hours later. 20th of 56 runners.

I pulled a pair of longs on over my soggy shorts, changed my top and spent much too long sitting in my damp patch in the cafe before getting back on the bike and riding the 9 miles home. My rather slow 3 mile ‘recovery run’ the day after confirmed that my legs had been doing the best they could. A great event which is supposed to run every Saturday at 9am – I’m looking forward to getting a chance to run again.

(Photos thanks to John Harvey.)