It's been a bizarre and at times frustrating week. I didn't complete a long run last Sunday & that's also been the case this Sunday. Circumstances on both days have conspired to prevent running. Then a sluggish 7km on Tuesday sapped my enthusiasm, only for a really decent 12km to encourage me on Friday.
Then there was parkrun on Saturday. With building work ongoing at home we've been heading out on Saturday mornings to allow the work to continue without us being in the way. This has led to four successive parkrun visits. By bedtime on Friday we still hadn't decided on where to visit. Pymmes and a visit to Ikea was a possibility. It wasn't until 0740 that we made the call to head north towards Bury St Edmunds. Timing was tight, but thankfully traffic meant we parked up with ten minutes to spare.
The Run
After a quick briefing I lined up with the rest of the field, choosing this time to stay nearer the front. The course was a two lapper, probably 80% grass, 15% trail with the remainder on tarmac. Probably the perfect course for Paula, but she opted to resume her role as RFTE photographer.
Two minutes in and I felt horrific, out of breath and slow. A glance of the gps confirmed the reason I was struggling, a 4:15/km pace! Not slow at all, but no wonder I was feeling gassed. I relaxed and settled into a more suitable pace, going through the first km just outside of five minutes.
The course appeared to climb slowly over the first half, then ease off before heading downhill through the trails and back towards the end / lap start.
For the first lap I appeared to be in a decent group that were all pacing 25's and I started to feel comfortable. By the climb of the second lap I'd broken clear of a number of people and was starting to haul in runners in front of me. I wasn't sure what my end time would be, my garmin was suggesting the course was measuring short so my consistent 5:03ish pace might be leading to a sub 25. I continued to maintain and improve pace towards the end of the run, breaking from the remaining person I was running with (there were a couple of kids dotted around us, but their pacing is impossible to gauge).
I crossed the line in 24:44, stretching the sub 25 streak to four successive weeks. Even more impressive was the processing of results, I'd received my text by 10:15!
The Eat
After the parkrun we headed into Bury St Edmunds. This isn't a place I'd visited since I was very young and the only things I could remember regarding the place was that the city used to be the countries smallest (based on the cathedral rule) & that they have a Woolworths (pretty sure no longer there).
The city was a pleasant surprise. Easy to find parking and a great range of shops. You had your standard run of generic every town shops that were complimented by a lot of independent offerings and a decent market.
We picked up some beers from an excellent continental beer shop & some scotch eggs with a sausage roll next door from Gastrono-Me. I even polished off my Danish Chocolate Milk despite not running on Sunday.
The Conclusion
Even though I didn't run on Sunday, the results of the easy run on Friday & the parkrun were very satisfactory. We're now in the final stretch before Helsinki and I'm a couple of long runs short, I feel comfortable though, especially as my pace is fine.
One other conclusion / idea is that parkrun must be good for local economies. Sure, not everyone is a parkrun tourist, but we headed into the city after the run and spent a decent amount in the local shops. I'm sure the head office promote all kinds of benefits a parkrun can bring to an area, just wonder what the economic impact is.
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