March parkruns

 Just the 2 parkruns in March out of a possible 4. But volunteered once and then the other time wasn't feeling up for it.  Too tired I think.   But the 2 I did do were Scottish ones that I hadn't done yet.  Auldcathie District and Holyrood

Auldcathie District

For this one I headed east with Craig W as he hadn't ticket this one off yet either.  Auldcathie District parkrun is in Winchburgh near Linlithgow and is Scotland's newest parkrun at time of writing.  At their inaugral they had 601 people turn up which is the highest inaugral attendence for a Scottish parkrun.  Their numbers have settled to about 100 now.  The route is on brand new paths built specifically with parkrun in mind as Winchburgh has seen a huge amount of housing built recently.  And one of the asks was to have a parkrun to go with it.  The course therefore goes round the outside of a housing estate and is quite undualting but I would describe it as gradual climbs.  

I knew a few other people there too from work as this is actually very close to my work.   I completed the course in just over 32 minutes and in my fastest time this year.

Holyrood

Holyrood is to me the easiest Edinburgh parkrun to get to if you are in the city centre without a car.  I stayed in a Premier inn in between Waverley and the parkrun which is a circular route of Arthurs seat.  I met Jonny who volunteers at Rouken glen who had the buggy with him.  The first two hundred metres or so is all flat but the rest of the first mile is all uphill and quite leg sapping.  I eventually had to take walking breaks.  The second mile is mainly flat and the views really are stunning here and you can see for miles.  But thing is its really not an easy flat mile as you already have all that up hill to deal with so I was struggling with the flat and had to take walk breaks again. But then the third mile is all downhill and this is where you make up the time.  My last mile was 9 minutes. Compare that to 12 minutes which is what I did the first mile in.  I was thinking this may be harder than Queen's despite being faster but then I went and did Queen's first week and April and errr, maybe not :-)

Thinking about the future

I have been thinking a bit about my parkrun goals and my running in general at the moment.  It's not been the best start to the year in terms of midweek runs.  I think the maximum I have done during the week is 1 run and often none.  This has made parkruns more tough and the fact I have done Queen's 5 times doesn't really make things any easier.  For Queen's I have got into a routine of running/walking the same sections to the point I don't think I can improve any.  The old adage that if you keep doing the same thing your going to keep getting the same results. And I think that's where I'm at, at the moment.

So I am thinking of doing more flat parkruns instead. And looking at the 9 Scottish ones I have left to do, there are some undulating ones left, but none on paper, come close to Queen's and there are a number of flat ones.  But for closer to home I think I will start looking at flat ones in the area. And there are plenty now: Strathclyde, Drumpellier, Linwood, Victoria, Erskine, Elder, Troon and Greenock. Basically tonnes.  I'm just walking too much at Queen's and I feel by doing flat ones I'm more likely to run more and get my times down a bit. 

That's the thought anyway.,........as long as I manage to get up for them or may just end up at Queen's lol