My 95th run at Southampton parkrun

parkrun finish tokens in a pile

Friday was my last day at work for a year, which felt very strange. It also means it’s the last day I’ll be cycle-commuting for 12 months. I’m not ready to give up my bike yet. I have far fewer aches in my ribs and back when I do some exercise. My current order of preference is running followed by cycling followed by swimming.

A steady parkrun

On Saturday morning, I arrived at parkrun early with Stu. We were jointly Run Directing, but Stu agreed that I could run. I never know which run will be my last.

It was a miserable, cold and wet morning, so I guessed that the turn out might be lower than usual. It was also the day before a number of local races including ‘Pieces of Eight’ in Portsmouth, the Clarendon marathon/half and Bournemouth Marathon Series.

I met up with Kim and as were lined up, we were joined by Vicky. The three of us decided that a nice sociable run was what we needed, so we kept ourselves going at a conversational pace. I felt really comfortable throughout and was pleased to finish in under 35 minutes.

southampton-parkrun-1st-october-2016

After running, we went to the cafe to process the results. I sat with some friends from Lordshill to sort the tokens.

What next?

I’d hoped to take part in the CC6 (cross country race) this morning, but Stuart and I needed to move a lot of furniture and remove old carpets. We managed to get it all done and disposed of the carpets at the tip. There wouldn’t have been time to do that and a race.

Tomorrow, I’m definitely going to make it to swimming as I have some new goggles to try out and I’m marshalling at an aquathlon for SUTRI later in the week. I’m also excited about meeting with Tobie (aka Bike Guy) to discuss cyclocross bikes and the team at Vankru to discuss bike fits 🙂

What have you got to look forward to this week?

Save

5 Responses

  1. Ten weeks after my first asthma attack during Outlaw I’m now on daily steroids and getting used to being an asthmatic athlete.
    Next week I will be easing back into training as I have signed up for Lakesman & ironman Hamburg.
    Training restarts for me tomorrow and I can’t wait ?

    • Asthma is rubbish, but at least if you can get it under control then it’s not so bad. For a long time, I assumed that the pain I felt in my chest for days after doing a hard race was normal and that if I got fitter it would go away!

      I saw a video for Ironman Hamburg last week – it looks like it’ll be a great race… and I’ve just googled Lakesman. That sounds like it’ll be a beautiful (but challenging) race. her’s hoping your training gets off to a great start 🙂

  2. It was certainly a wet miserable day. I was soaked to the skin watching. Pity you didn’t make the CC6, the weather was much better although it was a bit muddy.

I'd love to hear your thoughts...

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.