This morning I took part in another 5k parkrun. Hyde Park, Leeds again ... mainly because, if I'm not running to and/or from, it's the easiest one for me to get to. The others in the locality are at Bradford Lister Park, Leeds Roundhay Park and Harrogate.
I was looking forward to this race as, unlike last week, I was racing without the effects of the previous day's hard training still in my legs. As last week I was aiming for 18:20 for the 5k (3:40 per km). After a few miles warm up jog I was ready to go and, although the first 400m or so are uphill, the first kilometre overall is downhill and so it is easy to get carried away and run too quickly. My 1k split was 3:30 and I was a bit worried that it was too fast.
The second kilometre is slightly uphill and my time at this point was 7:13 (3:43 for that kilometre). Pleased with that split as it showed I wasn't slowing too much after a quick start. The third kilometre took me 3:40 (10:53 at 3k) and I was happily still 7 seconds ahead of schedule. The third and fourth kilometres have a couple of very small hills to climb but overall are slightly downhill.
The fourth kilometre took me 3:44 but at this point I was more interested in my overall time which was 14:37 - 3 seconds ahead of schedule. I knew now that I would have a very good chance of achieving my target as I had enough in reserve to run a marginally quicker final kilometre (even if it was slightly uphill).
That final kilometre took 3:37 which meant that my final time was 18:14
THAT'S 18 MINUTES AND 14 SECONDS ...
My second fastest ever 5k. My pb is 17:53 on a hilly course in Bradford way back in 1998.
So that makes it an age category pb beating the 18:17 I ran just before the Perth 24 hr race in 2010.
The age graded time of 16:08 is also a pb.
At my age you're not supposed to be only 21 seconds adrift of your 5k pb ... especially when it was set 15 years ago.
You'll have to wait until next weekend for the conclusion to this story ... I feel sure it'll be a happy ending though.
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