August on the whole has totally rocked! :-)
First parkrun of the month I went to Victoria park in the westend of Glasgow for the first time. Its a pretty much flat 3 lapped course with a slight incline in the far side of the park to where it starts. I paced it pretty well and finished bang on 29 minutes. At the moment sub 30's are my aim so very pleasing.
Second parkrun of the month I was back at Pollok. I can't really remember much about this one but again I finished under 30. Just! 29.56 so a good solid run.
Third parkrun I ventured out to Springburn parkrun in the north of Glasgow. I had a look at some other folk I knows times before it and it looked like the course is a about a minute slower than flatter courses. So I thought sub 30 might be pushing it. This was again reiterated at the first timer briefing where the guy warned that it was an undulating course. It starts in the middle of the course then you do 2 and half laps finishing nearly where you started. The middle of the park is the highest point so its a downhill start. Although there is obviously uphills they are very gradual, and it does feel like a flat downhill course somehow. I paced it well, not walking any, and finishing knowing I couldn't have given it anymore. I went home to look up the results and expected to see 30 min something. Only to find 28.15! My fastest time since returning to running last August!
I was thinking of doing Pollok the next week but since I had such a good run at Springburn, I was curious what kind of time I could do at Strathclyde where I hadn't really given it a good effort there since last December. Most of my runs there this year have been comeback runs. I really did start this run aggressively. I managed until 3.5k to sustain the pace and then I had to slow a little. Unlike previously at Strathclyde there was a lot more people around me which helped keep me going. I made it to the line and thought that it was going to be a close call to match my previous best at Strathclyde which was 28.23. ....and when I got home and checked my result? 28.05! Another seasons best, fastest time at Strathclyde and best time since returning to running.
So today, could I get another good time at Pollok? Well this one had a twist. As my mate from uni Stu decided to join me for his first parkrun. We had a chat at the start if he wanted me to run with him. But he said he'll just try and keep up and if its not happening I was just to go on as he has not done any exercise in quite some time. So we started together and I didn't start as aggressively as the previous week. We got to about 1.5k and Stu just said for me to go on, I wasn't feeling that great myself but went on hoping it would get better. I got to 3.5k and just had to start run/walking to the end. Just not my day. But even then got home and saw the result and got 31.51 so can't complain about that time at all since I did have walk breaks. My mate Stu did really well too for his first parkrun finishing just under 34 minutes.
So overall a great month. I am down to do a trail 10k race at Strathclyde Park next week but not sure whether I'll do it or not given I was struggling quite a bit today. We shall see.
For anyone who reads this that does parkrun (or if anyone reads this lol) I found a cool thing on the parkrun website where you can see a list of all your parkruns you have done on the 1 page no matter where you did it and also shows you your best time from each year regardless of location. Just go to an event page for a parkrun you have never done before. Search for your name and voila!
