28.07.2018
We were lucky with the weather today. Rain overnight cleared and thought it was cloudy and a little windy, conditions could have been a lot worse.
Anna and I went down first so that we could have a bit of a warm up. Carol and Jon arrived a bit later but still in time. It's actually 3 years since we all ran Portrush Parkrun together.
I wasn't going for any records as I haven't really run fast for a while. I know it's easy to say after the event, but I'd expect to be able to do around 22 minutes.
It's 2.5k out along the beach, and 2.5k back. I was doing OK on my average speed by the turnaround, though I could feel myself slowing. On the way back I seemed to be running with two other men, none of us willing to let the other gain any advantage. I pushed a bit harder, or so I thought; my speed was still going down. This is perceived effort working it's magic.
One of my rivals dropped back a bit, the other was on my shoulder. It's always amusing to see mid or low ranked competitors trying to outsprint each other for what is not really a very important victory - one place in a race that doesn't matter. But when you've spent 10 minutes trying to outrun someone, it becomes vital to win that meagre prize. I pushed as hard as I could with about a minute to go - there wasn't much left in my legs, and I have a feeling the other guy just didn't care and let me have the place anyway.
The rain was beginning as I finished, and Carol and Anna had to complete their races that way.
I came 29th out of 278, in a time of 21:51
Anna did 29:45 and was pleased to beat her target of 30:00
Carol did 25:12, and Jon did really well coming 5th with 19:35
Results
Parkrun here
Strava here
Flickr 1 2 3
There are photos on Facebook, but I haven't bothered to track them down for this blog yet.
We were lucky with the weather today. Rain overnight cleared and thought it was cloudy and a little windy, conditions could have been a lot worse.
Anna and I went down first so that we could have a bit of a warm up. Carol and Jon arrived a bit later but still in time. It's actually 3 years since we all ran Portrush Parkrun together.
I wasn't going for any records as I haven't really run fast for a while. I know it's easy to say after the event, but I'd expect to be able to do around 22 minutes.
It's 2.5k out along the beach, and 2.5k back. I was doing OK on my average speed by the turnaround, though I could feel myself slowing. On the way back I seemed to be running with two other men, none of us willing to let the other gain any advantage. I pushed a bit harder, or so I thought; my speed was still going down. This is perceived effort working it's magic.
One of my rivals dropped back a bit, the other was on my shoulder. It's always amusing to see mid or low ranked competitors trying to outsprint each other for what is not really a very important victory - one place in a race that doesn't matter. But when you've spent 10 minutes trying to outrun someone, it becomes vital to win that meagre prize. I pushed as hard as I could with about a minute to go - there wasn't much left in my legs, and I have a feeling the other guy just didn't care and let me have the place anyway.
The rain was beginning as I finished, and Carol and Anna had to complete their races that way.
I came 29th out of 278, in a time of 21:51
Anna did 29:45 and was pleased to beat her target of 30:00
Carol did 25:12, and Jon did really well coming 5th with 19:35
Results
Parkrun here
Strava here
Flickr 1 2 3
There are photos on Facebook, but I haven't bothered to track them down for this blog yet.
