Recently I’ve taken a new angle on parkrun. In the past it has always been a fast effort, a race, a tempo run or whatever. As both weather and body have been less than perfect I’ve felt much less competitive about it realising that dragging myself to the start for a slow run towards the back end of the field can still be rewarding. The fact that the nagging ache in my shoulder usually gets me out of bed early helps as the alternative of a pleasant Saturday morning lie-in isn’t on offer.

So a week ago Saturday I plodded round in filthy conditions, snow and sleet from above, real slippery mud below, to a personal worst of 28:09 20th of 32 which is less than half the usual field. I hung my cycling overshoes off my handlebars for the run and they must have filled with snow as by the time I got home both feet were freezing and I found the overshoe toes packed with blocks of ice – they took ages to defrost and felt really unpleasant 🙁  I was taking it easy as I planned to trot up to Shotover, run the Resolution Run 10k, and jog back home on the Sunday but the Resolution Run got postponed due to the conditions (though I ran up there anyway).

Gratuitous close-up of Honey taking a nap

This Saturday’s parkrun I was to be even slower at 29:30 61st of 77 runners but it was very much a planned recovery run, in fact I set out too fast and would have been better going even slower but it’s hard with other runners all about you. On Friday I had run (mostly) 15 hilly miles – the furthest since last October I think – to try myself out for the Compton 20 next week. It was a bit slow, averaging just over 11 minute miles, and various bits started hurting towards the end. Good enough for me to have the confidence to try for a 4 hour trot round Compton next week if the weather isn’t foul again – I’d be happy with that considering!

Wobbly Image of a Prism