July parkruns

 This month I had planned to do different parkruns starting off with Oban on the 2nd July. However, the trains were still dodgy with a reduced timetable so I cut my losses and left it.

2nd July – So, instead I headed to Elder park for the first time.  This is a pancake flat course on the southside of Glasgow in Govan.  It's three and a half loop, almost 4 loop course.  Which takes a bit of time to get your head round as you go around. As the half loop to the finish line starts first.  Then you do 3 laps from there.  I ran all the laps till the last lap where I had a wee walk.  Finishing in just over 31 minutes.  Amazing the amount of folk, I knew there.  A lot more than I usually see at Queen's. Must be the flatness luring them in.  

9th July - I did plan maybe a parkrun in Glasgow I hadn't done for a while.  But with my parents and brother on holiday I didn't want to go too far away in case of any car troubles or something else which would leave me too far from home.  So, Queen's was back on the agenda today.  I ran the first couple of hills but after that I was walking most of them.  I hadn't run much during the week so couldn't really expect a good time and ended up with a time just over 36 minutes.

16th July.  Back at Queen's again.  This time I was going in having had a few good runs during the week and felt a lot better on the hills. In fact, it wasn't till the last lap that I had to walk a few.   So managed to take 3 minutes off last weeks’ time and finished in 33 minutes
23rd July - I was undecided whether to run or volunteer today and, in the end, I did neither.  I hadn't run during the week due to the heatwave.  Then I was out on Friday night and when I woke on Saturday morning my body just didn't feel like running.

30th July - I got out for a quick mile loop on the Wednesday but due to having to wait in on parcels didn't get much done apart from that.  Plus spent the week in quite a bit of discomfort which I won't go in to.  But I managed to make it to parkrun which was an achievement in itself.  I changed my tactics this week due to the discomfort and walked pretty much all of every hill right front the start.  This meant a lot slower time coming in at 38 minutes and I was overtaken early than ever by 4 speedies coming down the big hill on the first hill.  It's amazing though that I felt way worse than last week, where I didn't make it to parkrun then I go when I probably had every right to miss it.  I was meant to go to Aviemore today but due to the week I was having cancelled that. And it was absolutely the right decision, as being on a train for all that time with what I have been going through would have been hell.

But every cloud, I have now run 25 parkruns at Queen's park.  I can't tell by stats who has run the most overall, but I can tell you that in my age group I'm now sitting joint top with another guy.