Parklife

And and it's not about you joggers who go round and round and round...

On Saturday I popped down to my local Parkrun. It was a glorious late August day - you know the ones where the sky is blue, the cornfields are ripe, and the trees look a glossy green. Absolutely beautiful.

Parkrun is a volunteer-run network of timed 5k races that take place every Saturday in certain locations around the world. They started in London but have branched out across the UK and into Denmark and Australia. You register on the website and are given a barcode which you print off and take to the event so you can get it scanned at the finish line. Laminate your barcode. I didn't and had to borrow a safety pin from a marshal so I could pin it to the bottom of my running shirt so it didn't get sweaty.

The parkrun was friendly and welcoming with an informal atmosphere. About halfway round I got a painful stitch and I had to keep bending forward to ease it. I was worried at mile 2 that I was going to have to stop and walk but I kept going. I managed a bit of a sprint to the finish but forgot to turn my garmin off as I crossed the line. When I did stop the timer and looked at my watch I saw it was 24:21, which was a new PB! When I got home I opened the parkrun email and saw that my actual time was 24:01, an even better PB! I'd knocked 23 seconds off my previous PB. :)

Splits:
1 07:50
2 07:49
3 07:46
4 (.8 of a mile - and I forgot to turn my garmin off) 00:00:55