h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Saturday was my 25th Parkrun, and I've not missed a week's run yet since I started. Despite the rain and the mud I managed a reasonable 23:58, coming 47th out of 179. This means I'm 5th on the Eastleigh Male Points Table (by one point).

I suspect that the course is only going to get increasingly muddy from now on, making new PBs unlikely now until Spring.

Next week in any case I'm going for a Personal Worst (I don't want to break my 'every week ran' record, but I don't want to run the day before the Great South Run, so I'm planning on doing a ParkWalk or possibly an occasional ParkJog, but despite all temptation, I must not run).

Tonight I plan to do my last pre-Run run.

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I bet you run

I've done the Heaton Park route a couple of times since I got back, managing 27:12 and 27:12. I was trying to take it easy the second time, but couldn't really keep the pace down. Having said that though, I wasn't that impressed with my times seeing as I was doing better when abroad. It's the hill near the end that gets me each time.

Today's run was a longer one, 7.34km. Started out making sure that I took it easy, I wanted to get distance sorted out again before worrying about speed. Found it quite difficult to breath though, so I wasn't really able to get up to a good pace or keep it: https://www.endomondo.com/workouts/424745231

So how did the Great South Run go, BB?

I ran another half marathon on Sunday and got round in 1:41:54, so about four minutes under my previous personal best. No pace runners and a more undulating course this time, but it was very pretty and the weather was about as good for October as you could reasonably ask for. I'll probably try and get a couple more half marathons in, but I think I'd like to start to train towards a full marathon.

Yes, how was the GSR? Did you see my good friends Team Kerr, running with their specially constructed racing wheelchair, on its first outing?

Another of our Jog Lisburners is doing the Dublin marathon today - he's lost about 4 stone in a year.

I've completed my training as a sighted guide, and look forward to running with some visiallu impaired runners in teh near future.

Saturday's pr was EXACTLY the same time as last week, at 26:12. Considering I'd had too much wine and not enough training during the week, I'm happy with that.

Crane Park next week, then Perth. No red 50 shirt yet, sadly, I wanted to show it off!

Park run I came 8-th out of 168 at a time of 28:01, and I didn't run (except to sprint uphill, which doesn't count). I was trying to run at a steady 10-minute-mile pace. The slower pace does mean that I've dropped down to 6th in the Eastleigh points table.

As for the Great South Run, I came 6,096th at a time of 1:30:52, which out of a field of 25-30,000 runners I think is impressive, I'm definitely pleased with that. I was aiming for 1:40 but found running pretty much a 9-minute-mile pace comfortable all the way. I did zig-zag quite a lot to slap hands as I was just enjoying the moment.

I'll see if I can write something for . Once my ankles stop aching. I don't think my shoes were designed to run on a surface of jelly babies...

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Oh, and in answer to your question, though I saw a few wheelchairs, none stood out as being specially-constructed. What did it look like?
I did see a 2-man submarine, Fred Flintstone, Gandalf, a stormtrooper, Daffy Duck, giant teddy bears, bees, two Power Rangers and a large number of men and women in tutus.

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I finally got around to doing my local/home Parkrun this weekend.

I came in 158 out of 416. It's rather a large run.

There was the one "funnel" to get your position tag when you finished, but it was quite a long one, and it kept filling up quickly. There were also four people doing the barcode scanning, and even with that there were quite long lines.

My time was pretty good though, 25:31. I think that's going to be a personal best for quite a while.

The start was very busy, as you'd expect with so many runners, but there were quite a few people working their way to the front, only to set out not too fast, and get over taken by lots of people trying to get up to speed. Thankfully the first few parts of the course are on wide pavements, but it still meant there was a lot of weaving going on. I think this run has got to the point where they ought to ask the over 30min runners to start nearer the back. Or to set off in two waves.

The other thing I noticed about this run, other than the sheer size of it, was that there were pacers. I'm not sure how many there were, but I saw 20, 26 and 27 minute pacers. I was hoping for a sub-27 run, and was behind but in sight of the 25 pacer for most of the route, and near the end his watch timer thing buzzed so I asked him how long it was. He replied 25, so I thought "Hey, why not?" and tried to sprint the last part of the course. Even though I'd just done the uphill and then the undulating part.

Having run this route quite a bit recently on my own, it really shows the difference running in a group of people makes.

What I'm not overly impressed with though is the points tables. It seems that each course has its own table and competition. The first male and the first female both get 100 points, the second 99, the third 98 and so on until the 100th person and everyone behind them gets 1 point. That sort of sounds okay, until you get a course like Heaton Park with 416 runners! To get more than 1 point, I'd have to move up 25 male places, over 40 places in total, shaving a full minute off my time. It's quite an ask, and not really an incentive.

I don't think I'd want to do a big parkrun regularly, I quite like recognising most of the people I see each week. Apparently Eastleigh has an average of about 100 people (numbers dip in winter) but always has plenty of volunteers. Southampton is much, much larger with hundreds of runners, but every week struggle to find anyone to volunteer.

The Points table works well at Eastleigh. I think the most runners I've ever seen about was about 185, so pretty much everyone gets over 1 point. So take Saturday when I was trying to do badly, I still got 39 points. When I was in Leeds and did my then fastest run to date, I only got 1 point in their table.

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I can't help thinking that if there's over 100 runners in each group, they should up the number of points available.

I did the park run again this weekend, and set off faster. Which of course mean that by the time I got to the hill at 4km I didn't have enough energy to keep going up it and had to walk a bit. Which meant I was 7s slower than last week.

This morning though I went out for my normal 7.5km run, but had the wife along as she's working from home today.

We decided to take it gently, because she's not done any longer runs for a while and set off at a nice, slow pace.
The first kilometre was interrupted by traffic a fair bit but came in at 5:56 so that felt about right.
Keeping the same pace up for the second, with only a bit of traffic it came in at 5:48.
The third kilometre was starting on the uphill slope, but still came in at 5:53.
Then the main uphill bit for the fourth kilometre but we seemed to keep the pace going nicely and managed 5:57.
Usually by this point my breathing is a bit pushed and I've started slowing down. My normal pace for these kilometres tends to be around the 5:45 mark, so we weren't that much slower, yet it felt so much easier and I was in much better shape heading into the last kilometres of this route.
The fifth kilometre took us into Heaton Park, and was only 5:40, with the sixth around the undulating part being 5:40 too.
The other half got a stitch half way through the 7th kilometre, so I slowed right down while she got her breathing sorted and then caught me up. This was her first run over 5k since May last year, so it's not too much of a surprise, but even with that we still managed 6:10.

Over all, 7.54km in 44:09 with an average pace of 5:51min/km and at the end of it, we both felt like we could have carried on for several more kilometres. Our breathing was fine and our muscles were okay. We weren't even feeling tired.
So, I think the weekend 5km Park Runs, and doing them faster, is helping for the longer, slower runs.

Saturday's Parkrun was very muddy and was diverted through long grass rather than the standard mown course at one point too. I felt like I was really doing very well, but came in at a slower than expected 23:59. Yet this week I was 33rd out of 167, so though my time was slow I had a higher position.

Next week I have to miss my first Parkrun since I started for medical reasons

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I did a shorter run today, 3.6km but it involved hills. I definitely need to involve more hills to build up my resistance to them:
https://www.endomondo.com/workouts/433363189


It may have been a short run, but that's now helped me reach my target of 500km. On New Years Eve I decided to try and run 500km this year, I thought it'd be a reachable target if I really stuck at it. I wasn't expecting to reach it in the first week of November, but I have. I've now run 501km so far this year!

Back to my canal and riverside route (just over 18k/11 miles) this weekend. I'd underestimated slightly how quickly it gets dark these days, but I was onto the (well lit) last mile before it got too murky.

I've joined a running club, but frustratingly I've only been able to make it twice so far, which makes it difficult to get to know people and sort out membership. It's been good so far - I've been joining them for drills/hillwork/speedwork/bodyweight strength training rather than longer runs. They do cross country and various other things, so I'll talk to them about that at some point too.

I'm pretty much set on trying a full marathon, probably my home town one in September next year. I've also got an eye on two spring half marathons, one fairly local, one in the town where I grew up. I've not done any Parkruns for a while, but I'll try to get one in this weekend (or, more likely) next.

I did the Heaton Park run yesterday and smashed my previous personal best by a minute to get 24:39!

I felt pretty good, so thought I'd go for it. The first kilometre (with the downhill bit) was 4:13, then two flat(ish) ones at 5:05 and 5:03 respectively, and the fourth one, up a long hill at 5:53. I was starting to tire by then.

Overall though, a good run.

It was kinda spoilt later though by being tripped up by the cat and smashing my big toenail, leading to it being very bloody and bandaged. I shan't be running for a couple of weeks now

I semi-missed one ParkRun, but as I couldn't run I volunteered. Under strict orders not to operate any machinery following my op, I naturally was given the task of being in charge of the stop watch.

The last two ParkSquelches I've been to have been extremely muddy. They keep optimistically tweaking the course slightly to try and incorporate any patches of non-mud and even grass to be found in the park, but it is rather futile. So my times have been slower lately.

Last week my time was 24:46 and I came 44th out of 151, on Sunday I did 25:27, coming 38th out of 138. Still 6th in the Points Table, though

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I did some tourism this weekend, and clocked a new PB of 25:10, and was 3rd lady home! The paths were a bit mucky, but I just ploughed through the puddles. They had pacers at this run - first time I've ever seen those at a parkrun event.

There's pacers at the Heaton Park one too, which certainly surprised me!

They've got them for 20, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26 and 27 minutes. No idea why not for 21, but there you go.

New Parkrun PB this Saturday.... 22:00, four seconds off my previous best from back in May. Very, very happy with that.

I'm not surprised you're happy, that's a great time!

My MudSquelch time this week (my 30th ParkRun) was 25:34, coming 35th out of 131. They'd changed the course slightly again, completely moving the route away from the low bit next to the river which means the whole first bend is completely different. Though it is good that we avoid the muddiest flat bit now, there's no escaping the fact that the hill is muddy, even though they've moved the route up the hill slightly again this week so we now ascend on the other side of the trees.
Still 6th in the Points Table.

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