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

I miss living in the Fens, where it's *all* flat

I'd like to try and do a half marathon, but it'll be a couple of years off yet I think. I still need to do the Manchester 10k in under an hour, missed out by 24 seconds this year

440 runners, how do they have enough room? And I thought it was busy at Eastleigh when we had over 150!

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Heaton Park is a *large* park. Apparently it's the largest municipal park in Europe. The route they follow starts off on wide paths, you can get about twenty wide, and by the time it narrows down, so has the field.

I've been to Heaton Park, as one of the bridesmaids at our wedding used to live in Prestwich. But we tended to visit the farm bit, and a playground that was at the bottom of a valley in the shade of several trees and always seemed to be incredibly muddy.

I wanted to see the tram museum that's there, but never got to.

Is it on tarmac paths? Otherwise with 440 runners I imagine it would get muddy incredibly quickly.

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Yup, starts at the hall, runs down the hill (towards that playground), around the boating lake, then on the not quite tarmac path around the back of the boating lake, then back onto tarmac up the hill, through the woods, and back to the hall.

I live right at the south entrance to the park, it's rather handy

This week's ParkRun time was 25:17, 52nd out of 169.

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Nice to see the Mass Run entry on the front page, congrats Pastey!

Cheers

You lot helped too though

Another 1hr 20mins Long Slow Run yesterday - ran just over 15k and felt reasonably comfortable overall, although it was a warm day and quite sunny. Really pleased with that, and nicely on track for my half marathon at the end of September.

There's a nice, steady, comfortable sweet spot trotting pace and form that's comfortable and fairly quick, but that doesn't really seem to open up until after I've done 7 or 8k. I think it's the point at which my energy tank stops emptying and stays more or less steady and sustainable.

Next week I'll up it to 1hr 30, perhaps do that twice and then think about trying the 10 mile canal/river track.

This week on a muddy course I came in at 25:34, 44th out of 145 and 2nd in my age category, apparently.

15k How have you got on with it?

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1 hour 30 tonight, just over 17k. 4k/20 mins more and that's the half marathon distance. Really pleased with that - I'll repeat that time again next week if I can.

Went and did the Parkrun on Saturday - 22:28, which I think was my second or third best time. Bit of a struggle - not that warm, but deceptively humid. Hopefully another 10k later in the week, and perhaps another Parkrun next Saturday....

These are great times you two!

Our run on Sunday was to the supermarket: https://www.endomondo.com/workouts/368357558

Went a slightly different route so we'd have more hill, both up and down. The first kilometre ends just at the top of the hill, and came in at 5:09, the second has the down hill and came in at 5:03.

We were out for a bit of pace this time, which seems to be the case for the shorter runs now, and I did hold back a bit as the wife hasn't been running much recently and was struggling a little to start with. I think that helped though as I'm not sure I could have kept that up that long.

Having said that though, the plan for today is to try my now normal 5km route, but at a much faster pace and see how it goes.

New PB at this week’s ParkRun, despite the heat: 24:49, making me 46th out of 158.

How did you get on with your 5k route?

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24:49 is great!

Thursday's run was a faff, I don't like MapMyRun, it just doesn't seem to work as well/nicely as Endomondo. But I did 5.14km in 27:35, so it wasn't too bad.

Today's run was better: https://www.endomondo.com/workouts/372578510

5.07km in 26:42, the 5k in 26:14. I was taking it reasonably easy too, although I did have to speed up a couple of times, once to get across the road in a gap in the traffic, and another time to get past a bus stop full of people as the bus was approaching. Both were uphill, so not convinced of the sense in that.
Good kilometre times though, 5:17, 5:11, 5:17, 5:11 and 5:18 which gave me an average speed of 5:16 min/km.
And it was also hot, I went for the run first thing this morning because it was due to get hotter as the day went on, but it seems to not have.

Today I went out for a quicker run, but shorter: https://www.endomondo.com/workouts/373227531

Recently I've occasionally been running to the supermarket, which is only 2km away, so I wanted to see if I could up the distance at that pace, so I went on one of my old routes, up and down a hill twice, and got some good times.

The first kilometre was flat for the first half, then a long uphill and I managed it in 4:51, and wasn't even having to concentrate on my breathing.
The second kilometre finished that hill, then flat for a little before a long downhill immediately followed by starting back up the hill, and came in at 4:59.
The third kilometre was uphill for a while, then a short downhill, and ended with a long flat, and I did that in 5:04.

So 3km in 14:54, I'm quite happy with that

That's a great time - especially for a first kilometre, and uphill. I always start slowly for some reason - 30 secs or sometimes even slower for the first K.

22:28 at the Saturday Parkrun - identical time to last week - and another 1hr 30/17k in the park yesterday. And my first introduction to the joys of jogger's nipple.

The Joys of Jogger's Nipple sounds like it should be a Guide entry

Great time for the 5km though! I'd like to start getting up to that sort of speed, but my target is *still* to do the Manchester 10k in under an hour.

I tend to make the rookie mistake of going too fast for the first lap, and then running out of puff on the last. I'm trying to work out what works best - trying to slow down to start with to improve my pace overall, or to try and increase my stamina and see that, if I can keep at the fast pace for 2 laps, can I keep it up for 2 and a bit, or maybe even 2 and a quarter?

I do hope that if I keep improving, and especially if I lose some of this extra weight I'm carrying, I'll shave a minute or two off my time.

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Today's run was a deliberately slow one: https://www.endomondo.com/workouts/373872072

That's now three days in a row I've been out running, so I wanted to take it a lot easier, because my knees were aching a bit when I got up this morning.

So, I took a different route where I had no idea of the length, so I wouldn't know when the kilometre marks or the end was coming up.

The first kilometre was mostly flat, but was uneven, gravel path and came in at a gentle 6:07.
The second was back on tarmac, but was a short, steep uphill followed by a long steepish downhill, and straight away after that a long, steep uphill. So it was quite a surprise that that came in at 5:34.
Next it was the undulating bit through the woods from my normal runs, but the other way around this time, and then out into an area I've no idea about, and that came in at 6:16.
The fourth kilometre was lots of short, sharp ups and downs and I did need to stop at one point for a short while to get my breath, I'm still crap at hills. So that came in at 6:40.
The last part of the run was .47km, all along a flat gravel path.

Overall, 4.47km in a gentle 26:56, with an average speed of 6:02min/km. With a lot of hills.

This week's time: 25:07, 49th out of 177 in rather humid conditions, with the weather drizzling.

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