Parkrun #14 - Maidenhead
New Year's Day 2020 and a special Parkrun - the 250th one at Braywick in Maidenhead.
I'm living a it further away now so it's not my closest (that's Bracknell), but it started at the later time of 10.30 am which was good after a late night yesterday.
I met a load of Evo members, Stuart & Rob, Barbara, Alan, Rich and others which was a surprise. It was good not to be on my own for a change.
I started well and got a good position without any real congestion - some of those behind me said that the 600+ people, some with buggies and dogs, made it hard to get any speed up and there were even places where they had to walk.
I was hoping for a time of 22 minutes, and so slowed a little after my 6:45 min/mile initial pace down to a fairly steady 7:15. My mental arithmetic was wrong though, more later.
I saw Izzy just ahead of me and David Dyer who is one of the course directors. I felt quite comfortable and was confident that I would be fine to keep at this pace until the finish - I've done a lot of running recently and am getting better at pacing.
Izzy pulled away, but David slowed a little on the back straight and I overtook him. A short time later though he went past me again! I overtook once more on the back straight - again, and then approached the small hill at the end of the second and final lap. speeded up and overtook a few people. A new left turn at he top of the hill approached a circular run round to the finish chute. With 100m to go I overtook a runner who did not want to be overtaken - I really had to sprint my hardest.
But even with that sprint and my pace improved to 7:06 I was still outside my 22 minutes goal, at 22:14.
I came 45th overall, out of 625 finishers.
Strava link
Parkrun link
In hindsight, I should have set myself a 7 minute mile pace, and I probably could have done it for the sub 22 minute, but I didn't want to suffer so much, and I'm happy I had a good run. I was 2nd Evo - Izzy was over a minute ahead.
New Year's Day 2020 and a special Parkrun - the 250th one at Braywick in Maidenhead.
I'm living a it further away now so it's not my closest (that's Bracknell), but it started at the later time of 10.30 am which was good after a late night yesterday.
I met a load of Evo members, Stuart & Rob, Barbara, Alan, Rich and others which was a surprise. It was good not to be on my own for a change.
I started well and got a good position without any real congestion - some of those behind me said that the 600+ people, some with buggies and dogs, made it hard to get any speed up and there were even places where they had to walk.
I was hoping for a time of 22 minutes, and so slowed a little after my 6:45 min/mile initial pace down to a fairly steady 7:15. My mental arithmetic was wrong though, more later.
I saw Izzy just ahead of me and David Dyer who is one of the course directors. I felt quite comfortable and was confident that I would be fine to keep at this pace until the finish - I've done a lot of running recently and am getting better at pacing.
Izzy pulled away, but David slowed a little on the back straight and I overtook him. A short time later though he went past me again! I overtook once more on the back straight - again, and then approached the small hill at the end of the second and final lap. speeded up and overtook a few people. A new left turn at he top of the hill approached a circular run round to the finish chute. With 100m to go I overtook a runner who did not want to be overtaken - I really had to sprint my hardest.
But even with that sprint and my pace improved to 7:06 I was still outside my 22 minutes goal, at 22:14.
I came 45th overall, out of 625 finishers.
Strava link
Parkrun link
In hindsight, I should have set myself a 7 minute mile pace, and I probably could have done it for the sub 22 minute, but I didn't want to suffer so much, and I'm happy I had a good run. I was 2nd Evo - Izzy was over a minute ahead.
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