Milton Keynes Marathon 2018 – finish lines not finish times

I had initially planned for Milton Keynes Marathon to be my target race for the 2018 Spring running season before I signed up to the South Downs Way 100. When the weather forecasters predicted the hottest May Bank Holiday on record though, I was glad that this marathon wasn’t my sole goal for the Spring and I changed my plans for the race.

I say I changed my plans, but I really wasn’t sure what to change them to!
I’d had a great run a week before race day. I’d set out to run eight miles at tempo pace with a mile warm up and a mile cool down. I found the run easy and could have quite happily turned this run into 10 or 12 miles at tempo pace, had I not needed to come home and get ready for work that evening.It gave me a real confidence boost going into marathon week, although Oscar then became ill at the start of the week and very clingy. He passed whatever it was onto me and we both ended up feeling rather rubbish for the rest of the week, resulting in Oscar missing two of the groups he usually attends and me missing a large batch of my training runs.

Added onto this I would be working nightshifts the weekend of the marathon. I had decided that I am best off saving my holiday allowance for target long distance races over the year, and as Milton Keynes Marathon was no longer a target race and wasn’t one of the longer events planned for this year I ended up not booking the weekend off. As luck would have it though, my manager messed up my shifts the previous weekend, calling me in on a day when I was not needed, so I managed to convince him to let me have the Sunday night before the marathon off in exchange.

It did mean though that I worked through the night until 7am on Friday (with no pre-work nap as Oscar was poorly) and then through the night again on Saturday with a two hour nap in the morning before traveling over to Norfolk for a friend’s baby’s Christening.

Back home by 6pm to pack my bag and get an early night, only Oscar (who was still feeling poorly, teething and was definitely feeling the heat from the day) had other ideas. I might as well have gone to work and earnt some money for all the sleep I got that night!

Despite poor sleep and having felt poorly that week, I did still manage to get an amazing night-before-the-race pizza in.

So, no sleep, on the back of being poorly and on a day which turned out to be 28 degree heat…very glad I’d struck Milton Keynes Marathon as my goal race! I was sweating before I even got into my car that morning!

As an ambassador for this year’s marathon I was given a priority parking pass and invite to the VIP room where there was cake, drinks and nibbles laid on. Best of all though, – no queues for the toilet as we had our own(!) I nervously stood by a table in the room having only met one of the other ambassadors before the weekend. I needn’t have worried though and I was soon busy chatting away to the other runners about training, race plans and shoe choices.

A little after 9am we headed downstairs along with the pacers for the race to have our photograph taken on the pitch.

(I’m in the bottom left of the shot. Picture by Tim Bullard)

(I’m third from the right, wearing sunglasses. Picture by Walker McCabe Photography)

It probably wasn’t the best idea to have the pacers knelt down in front of everyone as their balloons kept bobbing up everywhere!

(I’m third from the right. Picture by Walker McCabe Photography)

When we returned back to the VIP suite ‘good lucks’ were said as we all dispersed to find friends and family before the race and to carry out any pre-race rituals. I made my way back over to the spot by the entrance where WDAC runners always seem to congregate before the start of the MK event each year. There were several of our runners there and I happily chatted away sizing up who was running which distance and who would be in my start pen for the event.

I nipped back to add some more vaseline to my arms before the start. I knew that I would be pouring a lot of water over my head in order to keep cool and didn’t want the top of my arms to rub as a result. Luckily, we were allowed to leave our bags in the VIP area during the day, which meant that I didn’t have to worry about the bag drop and could check my phone/make changes to my kit until the last minute.

The start was just outside. Slightly different to previous years when I have run it, – this time the snake of runners waiting to start curved back onto themselves. I was in the blue start, the one before the last pen and so found where I needed to go and located the 4:45 pacer I had decided to start alongside.

Although I didn’t enter the pen until 9:50am (with a 10am start time) it took a fair while before we crossed the line. I began to feel a little queasy and ‘penned in’ despite not really being packed into the pens and so located a van parked to the side which several runners had already made a bee-line for and were leaning against in the shade. I felt much better after a few minutes of time out in the cool and then made my way back to the starting pen where I bumped into Kev from my club. He had been out crewing another club member at the Thames Path 100 that weekend and is coming down to crew a different member when I run the SDW100 next month, so we spent 20 minutes catching up and talking tactics before we crossed the startline ourselves. It was nice to take my mind off how hot things were and how poorly I had felt whilst stood still in the heat that morning.

I ran with Kev for the first couple of miles before he disappeared behind a bush. Kev never wears a watch but had planned to run somewhere around 5 hours that day (5h 00m 19s!) as it was his longest run in quite a while following injury. Just before two miles he asked me what pacer had the balloon bobbing away just in front of us. I told him that it was the 4:45 pacer, but that I thought he was probably going a bit quickly. (My first two miles were 10:20 and 10:30 and the 4:45 pacer was a fair way ahead of us, despite crossing the start line alongside me.) Someone turned around to say that he was just catching up with the runners he was pacing as she had just seen him nip into the hedge, but even so, he was going too quickly. I had heard him mention that he intended on running the flatter bits faster so that the group may slow down on the uphills. It’s a tactic used by lots, but I personally prefer to run fairly evenly if possible.

I made the decision to run my own race, without pacer and aim for 10:30mm – up hills, along the flat and also on the downhills (were there any of those?!) keeping an eye on my heart rate as I went. I have really enjoyed my tempo runs lately working towards a set pace for each mile and find that it gives me a mini focus all the way through a session, breaking a run up into manageable chunks. Dan was planning to bring Oscar out to come and watch the race and would be at mile 12.5 and mile 15.5, both shaded areas and fairly close together so that Oscar wouldn’t be out for too long in the heat. The plan was to hold onto 10:30mm pace for as long as I was able, but to reassess at mile 11, just before seeing Dan and Oscar.

It felt easy. Really easy. I had to keep slowing myself down.

As a race ambassador (and also due to not wanting to rub in the heat!) I had decided not to wear my club vest for the race, but instead wore my MK t-shirt and found it super comfy and cooling with it’s light colour. One of my favourite things about the switch backs at the start of the MK marathon/half route is that you can easily see other club vests coming back in the other direction and cheer other runners from our club. I knew that I wouldn’t be spotted by any club runners this year though without my club vest on and almost felt a little like I was secretly spying on them all running by!

Miles 1-6: 10:20, 10:30, 10:30, 10:24, 10:22, 10:21.

I had been told that a group from WDAC were biking over to the six mile point to cheer the runners on so kept a good look out for them from the 6 mile marker but saw no signs of anyone. There was a lot going on at this section as we ran through a little park, passed the section for the first relay runners to handover to their teammates and crossed the first block of timing mats, so there were lots of people around and I hoped I hadn’t missed our cyclists.

Heading towards mile 7 though I remembered there was a pub on the side of the road and knew they would be fairly close. Sure enough I spotted them cheering directly opposite and madly waved to get their attention, almost running into them before they spotted me out of club uniform!

It had started to heat up now. I’d been passing occasional walkers from about 3 miles in, but now many had adopted a run-walk technique, especially up the small ‘hills’ that cropped up. I was still feeling good, my heart rate was still fine (160ish) but I was feeling rather hot.

Miles 7-11: 10:23, 10:29, 10:26, 10:27, 11:01.

I dropped my gel at the start of the 11th mile and loudly swore twice as it had interrupted my stride whilst running an uphill which I then decided to walk. I shouldn’t have walked as the sweat then poured out of me and I could feel myself heat up further. It was at this point, looking around me and seeing not another single person running up that hill that I decided to just enjoy the rest of the race and make the most of the day. SDW100 is my main aim for this season, not MK Marathon and I wanted to be able to continue running the rest of the week, not have to take a week off after running a hard road race where I might shave a few minutes from my time. There would be time for that later in the year instead.

So, from that point I did not care about my time at all and thoroughly enjoyed the race experience in a way I feel you only can if time does not remain a factor.

I sat down with Oscar on the floor for a minute at 12.5 miles who was busy munching on his picnic and excitedly shouting at me “Law Law – run, run, run!” as he had just seen Laura run past. Dan told me that Laura was only a little way ahead of me, despite initially aiming for a sub 4 marathon that day. She had unfortunately fallen early into the race and had ripped open her knee. Dan had loaded her with wet wipes to try and help stop the bleeding when he saw her, but her run had changed to walk now as her knee began to stiffen.

I ran on. The people of Milton Keynes were AMAZING on Monday. They came out in their hoards to support the runners. I ran under more sprinklers than I could count. Dipped my hat in at least four buckets of water to cool my head down, enjoyed jelly babies, orange segments, watermelon and a couple of slices of frozen melon. << This was the best thing ever. I’m already putting a request in for frozen melon on the SDW100! There were so many kids (and adults!) out with water guns on the course and it was so refreshing even when the squirts came to the face! I took water from every water station, high fived hundreds of kids, thanked all the volunteers and even had a little dance to the band on route. I passed local residents kindly letting runners sit down on their garden chairs and one even nip in for the loo! I always thought London Marathon had a great atmosphere, but London was NOTHING on the buzz that was Milton Keynes on Monday.

I plucked up the courage to start a conversation with a runner wearing a Run Mummy Run top, chatted to several runners about how we had been training in ice and snow for a marathon in 28 degree heat and let one woman know that her belt had ridden up her back, potentially causing nasty sores for her later on.

One of my favourite photos from the race is one which Dan took as I was running towards Oscar at mile 15.5.

I stopped for a little while here to reapply some suncream, hand back the nakd bar I knew I wouldn’t eat and collect some ‘Free hugs’ from Oscar.

Dan said that Oscar had been enjoying cheering runners on that morning and had been busy clapping away and shouting “Run, run, run!” at everyone that passed. (He’ll make a great coach!)

My one year old was out supporting on the #MKMarathon course yesterday lunchtime in the shade. He thoroughly enjoyed cheering everyone as they ran by! pic.twitter.com/qRHLVBV8V4

— Mary P (@ahealthiermoo) May 8, 2018

I bumped into Laura just after 18 miles and walked with her for the following mile before jogging off so that my legs didn’t stiffen up. We saw a couple of members from our club here where I nabbed some watermelon slices and another bottle of water. I was a little confused that I hadn’t seen any other pacers pass me, but it turns out many had struggled on the day, despite running times often an hour slower than their own PB and pulled from pacing duties. I have never seen so many people walk during a marathon before and there were a couple of miles where I could probably have counted on my hands how many runners I saw!

I had taken a bottle of nuun water from Dan when I had seen him at mile 12.5 but to be honest my body was telling me that I had probably drunk too much water and not enough electrolytes/other stuff. I was struggling a little with my right ear, which sounds ridiculous, but it’s usually the first telltale sign for me that I need to slow down on the water intake. I walked a little way with two other ladies for a couple of miles from mile 22, deciding to lay down on the verge to cheer some runners past by mile 25 for a little while. I had salted up a fair bit by this point and felt like I was beginning to get heat stroke, so decided to take it fairly easy and took maybe five minutes to myself in the shade on the side of the path before continuing on.

I obviously had to run the finish though. Milton Keynes Marathon has a fabulous finish – running down into the stadium and then 3/4s of a lap round the pitch before heading under the finish gantry. I looked up to hear cheers from other runners in my club shouting me round, and then also saw a runner in a giant rhino costume not far behind. (Picture by Tim Bullard)

Erm wow. Just take a moment to think about how incredibly impressive that woman was. She ran a Rhino PB that day – a little under 5h 30m in that insane heat whilst wearing a ridiculously hot costume. Legend! (Picture by Tim Bullard)

I crossed the finish line and immediately turned to congratulate her.

To everyone who struggled with the heat at yesterday’s #MKMarathon , this legend ran IN A RHINO COSTUME! 😲 https://t.co/jmlID2C2rB

— Mary P (@ahealthiermoo) May 8, 2018

My slowest road marathon by far…

Official time: 5:32:01
Position: 1625/2028
Gender position: 375/557
Category position: 100/150

…but for the first time I genuinely didn’t care. I had thoroughly enjoyed myself that day.

The layout following the finish was slightly different this year. Normally runners head back out through the underpass and down into the underground section to collect medals and goody bags. This year though, runners had to walk up the steps inside the stadium collecting their medals and goodies as they went. I heard a few people moaning about this, but one of the benefits to taking the race easy was that I could jog up the steps at the finish and by Tuesday my legs even seemed to have forgotten that they had covered 26.2 miles the day before!

Another benefit was that my official photographs look great! This almost never happens to me in a race. I’m usually the beetroot-red, top-ridden-up runner with her eyes closed!

I’m very tempted to buy them, despite the result of the race being so poor.

A post-race family trip to the pub for dinner was definitely in order on Monday night!

I’m just waiting for the date for a Decathlon brand trip in September before booking an Autumn marathon to target this year, but after the 100 I’m looking forward to running a few marathon distances again, so will be booking up more soon!

Did you run out in the heat on Monday?
Do you suffer from running in the heat?
Have you run a marathon ‘just for fun’ before?
Photos: to buy or not to buy?

Write This Run 2

MacMillan fundraising and Christmas

Running thoughts post-baby

May 11, 2018May 11, 2018 Mary5 Comments

May 2, 2018 Mary2 Comments

Poorly planned parkrun tourism

I’m working 10pm-7am every Friday night for the next month so any chances to fit in some parkrun tourism are going to be few and far between over the next few weeks. Last weekend was the last Wolves game of the season though, meaning that I should hopefully be able to fit in some more local parkruns again as there is no longer a need to rush back from work to nap before Dan travels back for the football on a Saturday lunchtime.

I had been dreading last weekend. Dan had prewarned me that he would need to leave early for the Wolves game on Saturday, as it was due to be a big turnout for the last game of the season. He would also be home later than usual, – after 8pm. Cutting into my nap times at both ends of the day!

I try to sleep for an hour or so before getting ready for work to try and get me through the night, which does help somewhat, and can usually manage 2-3 hours of sleep the following morning before taking over with Oscar, but working weekend nightshifts is still far from an ideal situation at the moment. (Especially as it’s stopping me from booking some of the races I want to enter at the moment too!)

I rocked up to work at 10pm on Friday night as usual. After my hour long nap before work on the first nightshift of the week I always struggle to get out of bed. It takes me a little while to fall asleep on Friday evenings as I will have usually slept normally the night before. When my alarm goes off at 8:40 I always end up snoozing it for five minutes and end up having to really drag myself out of bed when that second alarm cries out.

My manager was late in this week. When he arrived I nodded my head in his direction and carried on working the cream aisle which I tend to work on a Friday night. He made his way over and whispered “You’re not supposed to be in tonight!” I was so sure I was and as we headed down to the office to check the rota I scrolled through the photos on my phone and found the picture I’d taken the previous month showing my hours. I WAS due to work that night! However I wasn’t on the main rota displayed in the office.
My manager said I was welcome to stay and work but that the department was already fairly well staffed for that night so I offered to go home, trading the inconvenience of me coming in for a shift I didn’t work for next Sunday off from work, as I’d forgotten to book off the night before Milton Keynes Marathon, which could have been interesting! As it is, I’m still working Friday and Saturday night next weekend, then traveling to Norfolk for the christening of a friend’s baby on the Sunday afternoon. Then returning to Northants on Sunday evening as I need to be in Milton Keynes by 9am on Monday to have my photo taken as one of the Milton Keynes Marathon ambassadors. (Why is my life always so busy and manic?!)

But, not working on Friday night this weekend meant that at least I would be able to fit in some tourism before the craziness of the next few weeks hits. I had spoken to Laura earlier on the Friday who had mentioned that she was going to the fairly new Luton parkrun course to tick off some more parkrun tourism the following day. After clocking out from work and before heading home I quickly typed ‘Luton parkrun’ into Google and saved the details for the following day, dropping Laura a quick message to say that I was no longer working and would join her at the Luton event.

I actually ended up not getting to bed until 11:30pm. Oscar has had a bit of a cold this week and then woke at about 4am for half an hour or so, just wanting a cuddle. He went back to bed without issue and was still sleeping when my alarm went a little later at 6:45am.

As I’m so used to doing now I took my running clothes downstairs and changed in the kitchen, messaging Laura to say I was on my way.

The Luton Wardown parkrun course is about an hour away from me but having not been there before, and not being the best at following directions I wanted to leave plenty of time to get there. I arrived with lots of time to spare, hopping out of my car just after 8:30am. I messaged Laura to let her know that I had arrived first. (This NEVER happens! I’m usually the one legging it over to the start line just in time to cross the line as someone is shouting ‘GO’!) Laura replied to say that her satnav had broken so she had had to stop and pull up the directions on her phone but would be there shortly.

I found the toilets (nicest toilets I’ve been to at a parkrun before) and decided to run a warmup mile whilst I waited for Laura to arrive as the weather was pretty miserable – wet and chilly.

Following all the other runners I headed down towards the start, keeping an eye out for Laura on my way. Still no sign of her. I really hoped she’d managed to find it OK. The briefing didn’t begin until 9am and I pushed my way through the group to try and spot Laura in the crowds. Still couldn’t see her!

The briefing lasted a little while as there were several runners completing milestone parkruns and there was also information given about #runforMatt – an organised 0.6 miles following the parkrun to make up the mileage to 3.7 miles – the distance Matt Campbell had been from the finish line when he died at the London Marathon the previous weekend. Everyone cheered for the 156th event and then we made our way down to the start line.

I’d spotted on the Luton Wardown Facebook page that the last Saturday of each month was their official pacer parkrun event and they had a large number of Pacers advertised for the run between 23-36 minutes. I had been feeling rather weary all week so decided to slot myself between the 29 and 30 minute pacers and just run a comfortable pace throughout.

(Photo from the Luton Wardown Facebook page)

It wasn’t until I was a mile in to the run that it clicked that the Race Director had mentioned it being the 156th event that day. I remembered that Laura had said the parkrun event she had been going to this weekend had only been running for a few months and suddenly realised that there must be two parkruns in Luton and that Laura must have gone to the other one! Whoops! (In actual fact she had gone to Houghton Hall, just 3.9 miles up the road!)

The Luton Wardown course is three and a bit laps, with a quite long, gradual hill up a muddy slope which you run up four times in total. It definitely isn’t a PB course! On my second lap the guy in first place (wearing a London marathon t-shirt from the previous weekend) lapped me. I think seven runners lapped me before I began my final lap. I also began lapping people on my second lap as well.

(Photo from the Luton Wardown Facebook page)

I’m not a massive fan of several-lap courses but it is nice knowing where the hills are going to pop up and where to expect marshals/support on the way round.

The 29 minute pacer was still far into the distance as I completed my third lap. I glanced down at my watch to see that I would still finish a fair way under 29 minutes, but gave a final kick anyway.

Official time: 28:42
Position: 119/284
Gender position: 20/121
Age category position: 3/11

The weather had remained fairly miserable throughout. That horrible kind of drizzly rain where you end up feeling soaked despite barely noticing the rain coming down at the time.

This was my 107th parkrun and 23rd different course. I was hoping for another tick at Stopwatch Bingo but it wasn’t to be!

My cow cowl had arrived earlier in the week though, so I made sure to wrap it around my wrist to indicate that I was a tourist. I didn’t spot any others out there on the day, but I’m looking forward to spotting some more tourists at events now that I have my cowl too.

If you have a cow cowl, how do you wear yours?
Have you ever (not) met someone at the wrong location before?!
Did you take part in the #runforMatt 3.7 miles at the weekend?

Fitting in running alongside a baby

Judging others

I LOVE TRAIL RUNNING!

May 2, 2018 Mary2 Comments

April 26, 2018 Mary4 Comments

The parkrun Chrome extension

I love the parkrun Chrome extension so much I thought it deserved it’s own post(!)

I first heard saw people mentioning the extension on the UK parkrun tourists Facebook page about a month ago. I refrained from downloading the extension for all of about 3 days before giving in and adding it to the desktop computer in our office.

I would strongly advise downloading it if you love challenges, data, stats and all things geeky from a running perspective, as I enjoy spending ages looking at how to tick off the next part of a challenge now! It has definitely helped respark my enthusiasm for getting back out there on a Saturday morning again.

After you have downloaded the extension and first click through to your personal page, you are greeted with your name along with the number of events you have run and a whole host of badges underneath this information.

Working from top-bottom, left-right my badges are as follows; 100+ events run, Strava user, tourist, New Year’s Day Double event, Bronze Level Obsessive (having run more than 30 parkruns during one year), Marshal, Tail Walker, Pacer, Photographer, Barcode scanner, UK event.

Underneath the badges a general overview of event times are given across all courses.

I quite like that my best times between 2013-2018 have alternated between 26:xx and 28:xx each year! It almost makes me not want to put any effort in at the remaining 2018 parkruns just to keep the pattern going!

After this comes the challenges, – the fun part!

First up, is the tourist challenge – one taken on by so many parkrunners already. Once you reach 20 different events (I achieved this right at the start of the year), you can claim your Cow Cowl so that other parkrun tourists can spot you as you are out running different events, which I think makes for a great conversation starter.

The Cowell Club underneath is similar, but for the hardcore tourist – traveling to 100 different events or more.

The Alphabeteer Challenge is one that I’ve heard a few people take on recently, including Anna, who only has a couple more letters to tick off.

There isn’t currently a parkrun starting with the letter ‘X’ so there are only 25 events to run to tick off this challenge. Annoyingly, quite a lot of the events I’ve run have the same letter, so I’m not even halfway through this challenge yet. (Kettering/Kings Lynn, March/Milton Keynes/Market Harborough, Wimpole Estate/Wolverhampton…)

The Single-Ton and Double-Ton challenges are all about completing 100/200+ events all at just the one course.

I was surprised that I had completed 45 events at Northampton to be honest. It felt like it took me forever to hit that magic 50 total events milestone a couple of years ago, and now I’ve run nearly that many just in Northampton!

Stopwatch Bingo is one of my favourite of the challenges. The idea is to collect finishing times with all of the seconds between 00-59.

I’m only 11 away from completing this one but really annoyingly it’s not a challenge you can plan to complete, as there is no guarantee my Garmin time will match that precisely of the parkrun stopwatch!

The Pirates! and Stayin’ Alive challenges are just for a bit of fun.
Seven Cs and an R for the Pirates! challenge, and three Bs and three Gs for Stayin’ Alive.

I’m slowly working my way through the Cs, but we have no Gs anywhere near where we live. I think I might have to base our next holiday break around a G parkrun!

Compass Club is fairly self explanatory…running events which start with each each of the four compass points; North, South, East and West.

Obviously I’ve already ticked off Northampton, I guess South could be Southampton, East…Eastleigh? West…Westmill?

The Full Ponty is about completing the three ‘Ponty*’ events, and Bushy Pilgimage is about heading down to complete the event where parkrun first began.

I’m not sure I’ll get to complete The Full Ponty, as all the Ponty runs are far away from me. Bushy is also a fair distance to travel, but I would love to complete this event one day. I know that it’s one of the largest (the largest?) of the parkrun events, with more than one finishing funnel there are that many runners.

The NYD Double – on New Year’s Day numerous parkruns across the country pair up to stagger the start times of their events, meaning that on that one day of the year you are able to run more than one event.

Groundhog Day – this award is given to someone who finishes a parkrun event in the same time for two back-to-back weeks in the same location!

Running the NYD Double has become a bit of a tradition for me over the past few years. I first heard about the double back in 2015 on New Year’s Eve after having already consumed a little too much drink and having already stayed up a little too late, but I’ve made it for the challenge the last three years.

I’m not sure Groundhog Day is even possible?!

Underneath this is displayed the Regionnaire Challenge; where every parkrun in the world is listed under different Region headings.

Some of the regions are quite large, and where I live is right in the middle of a couple of the regions, so I’m still a long way from completing any of these. For example, I have only completed 9/65 events in the East of England region.

Next up, the Bronze, Silver and Gold Level Obsessive badges are for regular parkrunners who can commit to completing more than 30 (Bronze level), 40 (Silver) or 50 (Gold) events within a year.

I think the Bronze Level is a fairly achievable challenge for me most years. 40 would be doable at a push, but I’m not sure I would be able to commit to 50 Saturday mornings in a year. It’s too stressful parkrunning before rushing off to a wedding or Christening!

Just before displaying all of your personal event runs at the bottom of the page, your volunteer roles are shown.

One of my targets for this year was to volunteer more at parkrun and give something back to the lovely community. I’ve already volunteered as pacer (30 minutes) and barcode scanner in 2018 and I’m looking forward to trying a few more of these roles out over the coming months.

Have you downloaded the Chrome extension?
Which is your favourite of the challenges?
Do you know anybody who has actually completed the Groundhog Day challenge?!

I’ve missed club trail runs

All day auction

A map-reading error

April 26, 2018 Mary4 Comments

April 24, 2018April 24, 2018 Mary3 Comments

More parkrun tourism and the new Chrome extension

This year has been a bit of a weird one when it comes to running and racing. Since starting weekend nightshifts last December I’ve had to turn all of my usual plans on their head.

It’s hard enough getting round for parkrun on a Saturday morning when you have a toddler, but when it comes on the back of a nine hour shift finishing at 7am…all I want to do is sleep!

Two weeks ago I wasn’t needed in work on the Friday night, as there were enough staff in already. So I headed over to the fairly new parkrun in Northampton – Sixfields Upton. The event started up just after Christmas and several of us have been holding back from going along too soon, so that the volunteer team weren’t rushed off their feet with large numbers of runners when the event was still in it’s early days.

The extra parkrun in town hasn’t seemed to affect numbers of runners at the Northampton Racecourse event though which still regularly hosts more than 500 runners on a Saturday morning.

Dan decided that he would also like to parkrun at Sixfields Upton as he wasn’t traveling back for a Wolves game that morning. We took Oscar along in his buggy and walked over for the start of the event where we met Laura. I’d worn road shoes as the parkrun website said that the event was held entirely on tracks and paths, but in actual fact it was incredibly boggy and muddy out there and I was a little upset that my super clean road shoes ended up covered in so much mud by the end of the event! It also caused a few problems when runners refusing to go through puddles stopped dead in front of Oscar’s buggy. It wasn’t just the occasional runner who stopped to daintily pick their way round the puddles so I had to really be on my toes. A handful of runners even leaped back almost into us as water splashed up towards them. I have no idea how I managed to not clip anybody with the front wheel of the buggy!!!

This was the state of my trainers and legs post run…(!)

It’s a very different event to the Northampton one, which is perfect. Nobody wants two very similar events right next to each other!

I think I’ll probably stick to the original Northampton parkrun course on weekends when I run with Oscar though, as it was a little nerve-wracking trying not to bump into anybody on route with the buggy.

Despite starting from the back of the pack we glided past Dan with nearly a mile to go. Oscar spotted Dan from way back and began shouting “Dadda!” in his direction. Although this changed to baa-ing at sheep as we passed them instead.

Sneakily, Dan saved just enough for a sprint finish and pipped the three of us on the finishing straight. We’ll beat him next time though!

Official time: 31:34
Position: 147/238
Gender position: 44/106
Age category position: 11/17

Oscar then enjoyed a good forty minutes of kicking a football around the car park before we headed home to enjoy the rest of the day.

I had booked off this last weekend from my nightshift job. Over the next few months I am also working as a coursework moderator for a GCSE exam board. (Who needs one part time job when you can fit three in alongside life as a full time Mum?!) As it will be my first year working as a moderator I was advised to attend a day-long course in Coventry before scripts for the 20 schools I’ve been assigned to start to come in for checking.

I was so excited to see that my course didn’t start until 10am on Saturday morning, and that the course location was less than 4 miles away from a parkrun I’d not run before! I WILL tick off some more parkrun tourism this year, despite having run all parkruns within an hour radius of my house now!

It was super hot on the morning and even though I’d brought along a towel and packet of wet wipes I decided (already sweltering by 8:15am!) that I was going to just jog around the parkrun at at a 10mm pace so as not to get too sweaty for my meeting which followed.

I ended up arriving super early (This really makes a change for me!) and so went for a lovely wander/explore of the park and off to find the toilets, which didn’t appear to be open. I wasn’t desperate, so figured I’d be fine for another hour until I arrived at my course location.

Coventry parkrun is fairly similar in size to my local event, Northampton, although set in a much larger park. Volunteers helpfully set out signs along the start lineup indicating where to stand in relation to the time you expected to finish in. As the briefing had overrun slightly, we ended up heading down to the start a little late and so I decided to run at 9mm pace instead, figuring that I was going to get sweaty no matter what…better to be on time to my training course if I could be! I ended up standing just behind the 28 minute board, although frustratingly heard two separate groups of runners declare that they would never run a 28 minute parkrun that day but at least they wouldn’t spend so much time weaving near the start if they started from that position. In actual fact, I spent the first mile overtaking other runners, despite running at the correct pace for a 28 minute time.

Interestingly I read somewhere that this year runners declared their goal time for Brighton Marathon during the expo, rather than when they initially signed up for the race, which was potentially a year earlier. This a great idea as it reduces the number of people overoptimistic (or underoptimistic) about their finishing times, already knowing how their training has gone for the race before finalising their goal.

The Coventry course is a really flat one with a tiny hill at the far end of the park, and a long, very gradual downhill which follows. It’s easy to get into a rhythm and the course never felt too busy, despite the overtaking at the start.

By the last mile I really needed a wee, and on scanning my barcode had to race off to the now-open toilets before rushing back to my car.

Official time: 28:40
Position: 331/675
Gender position: 62/273
Age category position: 30/83

Typically I then took a wrong turn when driving to the training course and then as I burst through the doors with two minutes to spare I was met by a rather unhelpful receptionist who not only couldn’t find me on the list because I’d stated ‘Computing’ instead of ‘ICT’, but proceeded to send me to the wrong room after I’d changed out of my running gear and having hurriedly wet wiped the sweat from my face! The course lecturer found me wandering the corridors ten minutes later looking for the correct room, blaming the receptionist for telling me the wrong location!
I had a very enjoyable day learning about how the coursework moderation system works. I do love learning and miss being in a classroom environment so often since finishing my last teaching position.

I’m working again this weekend and Dan is away on the Saturday but I’m already eyeing up my next spot of parkrun tourism for the following week. The parkrun Chrome Extension isn’t helping my addiction…!

I plan on writing about the Chrome extension in more detail at some point (I’m on the computer at my Dad’s house tonight) but it is just so addictive!