Saturday 21 May 2011

Glasgow Parkrun #123

21st May 2011

Results | Activity on Garmin Connect

My first Parkrun in a while, and my main aim was to beat my PB of 17:13, and to see if I could get sub 17 minutes. This would mean running 3:24 or better for each kilometre.

I couldn't see any known competition on the startline, so started with the intention of taking an immediate lead. I went through the first kilometre in 3:17, according to Garmin, although I don't fully trust the kilometre splits since the course takes sharp turns beneath tree cover.

I kept surging to try to drop the 2 young guys who were running right beside me, but after 2km they were still with me, and in fact had got just ahead as we closed the first loop.

The 2nd lap begins with a steady uphill drag, so I quickened my feet and went past Andrew Clark of Giffnock, and was closing on the leader Roger Naughton.

I should have tried harder at this point to close the gap, since once over the brow of the hill and into the descent, Roger pulled away again.

At the 4km point we turned left into a wall of tail end runners on their first lap. I lost sight of Roger as I tried to avoid slamming into the backs of runners veering across the path.

I did what I could on the final descent to the finish to reduce the gap to 8 seconds, and felt sure I'd worked hard enough for a decent time so was a bit surprised and disappointed to realise I'd only run 17:20 which was 7 seconds off my PB set last November. Must try harder next time!

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