Last week, I ended up being in Gunnersbury Park...once, twice, and three times.
Well, that's the only way I could get my kayanos accustomed to the outdoors. Me to get used to running without stopping, and close enough not for me to invent any excuse to back out of a training run...(like today, having to cook for a big meal to celebrate the fullest moon of the year!)
I'm always lost in this park. The 'potholed' surfaces, the possibilities to take a wrong turn...doing a proper race here wasn't going to be easy.
Tuesday, I kicked myself out there...thinking of the uphill, the stairs from last year, I picked the hardest route possible....and managed to just squeeze a mere 3.5 miles. It's a far cry from my 'marathon days', a no stopping session is an achievement. And a negative split! Hallelujah !
Thursday, as I mentioned in my last post, I went around the route with the organiser...ive not ran and talked with someone during running for a long time....it really pushes my limits , but makes me realise why there's always pairs of runners yapping away in the first miles after the start, it makes a negative split much easier. Alas, after lap 1.5, after she said goodbye , my motivation waned...and so did my pace.
Now onto Saturday....having left my bag at work on a Friday, I had to go fetch it...with twickenham rugby on, the easiest time to head west was early in he morning. Now that I knew the course was largely modelled on this parkrun in gunnersbury, and finishes uphill on grass...it was the time to get my inaugural visit to gunnersbury parkrun.
It's rather friendly, people were spread out, the pacers had their numbered bibs (unlike the printer generated one of Richmond park, my home club), and when the race starts, everyone swarms downhill on the grass...
Except my runkeeper won't start. I held and fiddled for a bit, and gave up as soon as I reached hard surfaces.
It's funny running somewhere you know well, but organised in a different way. (As I keep telling the guys, it's the exam where you know the subject area, but no one tells you the exam question). Unlike Richmond park, predictably hard towards the end, gunnersbury, is very well organised....with km markers signposted, and a 'time reader' at half time...she said 13:xx. I left mr 30 whilst doing the uphill after the first km, but mr. 26 was never to be seen. Well with 13 being read, I knew it wasn't the day.
In my years of training, I've never read up on race strategy (only on training),so this article is quite handy, for the things to think about, in race.
LATCH ON
My target came after just shortly before 4km, a girl in a white singlet ....I followed and overtook her...but can never get comfortable....gunnersbury is relatively flat, compared to a 4km mark at Richmond where I was out of breath, I could still go on (but not sprint). It was then potholes after potholes around the bottom of the park...
Pick one person and focus solely on reeling them in, nothing else
This, as I was going up 'theboulevard' towards the finish, was another singlet girl "gt3000"(like my old shoes)...I tried the above, it worked! What I was unaware of was I was being reeled in by ms white singlet again...and she passed me this time.
With only 100 metres to go...I had to just get there. One tends to feel safe through the barricades but not this time, another girl tried to squeeze past me to get her barcode. Lucky the fair marshal stopped her and awarded me chip 157.
5:25/5:45/5:20/5:28/5:33... So that's it for the week. As they say, it's your first parkrun on this course, so 'we have marked this as a pb'.
It's my fastest time this year. On Thursday, it will be a course record for me (never ran this type of distance in this park). But can you ever compare different types of apples?
(Yes it's going to be a route that runs backwards on the second lap..how can it be done?)
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