I’ve inexplicably now racked up 7 parkrun 1st place finishes this year but my speed seems to have topped out.
We paid a visit to South Manchester parkrun on Saturday with my aim being to run sub 17 minutes on what is as flat a course as I could find. I figured looking at previous results there would be several people there who would be able to provide unwitting pacing and directions (previous weeks are usually won in sub 16 minutes) but it appeared they all had the day off.
As it happened, we went through the first mile comfortably in around 5:30 but the guy leading with me tucked in behind was obviously working very hard at this early stage so I had choice but go on and ended up leading from just before the first mile.
It’s way harder to run fast from the front than when you’re chasing someone and in the end I was was off my PB although managed to finish 1st. Happy with that but strangely disappointed to be a long way off my goal.
One of the problems I definitely felt was that my stride feels all wrong at pace, it’s short and like a fast shuffle not the easy stride I see from many of the fast guys at parkrun and it’s something I’m going to hit the track and work on after my White Rose recovery. I really feel I’ve got a sub 16:30 in me if I train specifically for shorter distances which is the plan for next year.
It is great seeing my name at the top of the list on the parkrun results though!