Week 6: Saturday - 6km easy
4 routes in under 4 years
I’m not 100% sure yet, but this could be one of the last short, easy runs in the plan that incorporates Parkrun. I’ve been umming and ahhing about what to do with the long runs as the mornings continue to get shorter while the plan adds 1k a week still. I do have a chest-worn light, but I’ve only used it two or three times because I don’t like it at all. So, I’m starting to think about moving my long runs to Saturday and incorporating/finishing with Parkrun. I haven’t fully committed to that change yet, but it’s feeling likely.
Prologue
Anyway, whatever will be will be. For now, I’m finishing week 6 with Parkrun being the first 5km of a 6km easy run. First, though, I fell asleep on the sofa watching a documentary about kung fu movie stuntmen, and consequently left the house late enough that I needed to run to get to the start at a reasonable time.
Started so strong I thought, sod it, let’s consider this a 1km time trial. It wasn’t until I was well beyond where I thought the 1km mark should’ve caused my watch to beep that I realised I still don’t have auto-lap turned on on my watch, and indeed I’d run 1.11km. D’oh.
According to Smashrun it was my third fastest 1km ever (and I have my doubts about the legitimacy of the fastest ever).
Strava, on the other hand, doesn’t have it in my top 3 - but Strava works off rolling kms at any point in any length run, rather than an actual ~1km effort from start to finish, so that’s probably legit.
6km easy including Broadwater Parkrun
Nov 9th 2024 marks the first day of Broadwater’s fourth route, in only 38 months. Now we’re starting near the kids playground, and doing two clockwise loops comprising the lake (familiar) and paths through the old, overgrown golf course (unfamiliar).
It’s weird. Running paths that I’ve done hundreds of times but never in this direction was really odd. Almost lost my footing once or twice. I’m sure it won’t take long to get used to the lake part being “in reverse”, but the golf course bit… I have my reservations. It’s very windy, very bumpy, and pretty much single file throughout. I was running with Nick and trying to maintain conversation but most of the way we couldn’t run alongside each other!
At the end I bumped into Andy, who finishes first most weeks, and asked him about how he got on lapping folk. He said “I basically had to run through a hedge”. Hmm. I guess I’ll see in the coming weeks if I start to prefer it, but gut feeling is … well, I might prefer it because I didn’t like the previous route - I definitely don’t miss the rugby pitch sections - but I’m not sure I’m going to like it.
Also it’s long, knowingly so - the run director announced it at the start. Came in at 5.08km on my watch, which I did in 29:57. Conversational pace indeed. Had a bit of a chat at the end then got scanned and set off to finish the “easy run” with the remaining 920m. Final split: 5:15. Hmm, didn’t feel that fast, but I’m fine with it.
Epilogue
That’s week 6 (i.e. week 5) complete. Week 7 involves my first ever pyramid set. Colour me concerned.