Saturday saw me back at parkrun. I was back at my local parkrun after my adventures at Woolacombe Dunes parkrun.
I went and found the 40 minute pacer and this time it was Kim from my running club. I like it when it’s someone I know as I feel like I can have a good natter and not focus on the running so much. There was a small group of people wanting to run with her. We saw the guy who dresses as a monkey with weights in his backpack and talked a little about how much money he’d raised for charity. He quite often runs our parkrun and local races. He’s in all my race photos from one particular race, where he just beat me. A nice reminder! I told Kim I’d quite like to beat him this time.
I started off alongside Kim and her group and then found Martin who is the ED of a nearby parkrun. I had a lovely little chat with him before he zoomed off in to the distance. By this point though I realised I was quite a way in front of the 40 minute pacer group. I’d gone from a 13 min/mile with them to an 11:30 min/mile! Oops!
So I thought rather than stop and wait or slow down too much I’d just carry on and see where I got. I find running so much harder on my own though. I had no one to chat to for the remainder of the run which was a bit of a pain.
It was nice to see Anna though, although she was already on her way back from the 2nd turnaround point when I hadn’t even reached it yet, and she has a bad knee!
I think it was also somewhere around this point that I overtook the monkey. I had a horrible feeling he’d overtake me again at some point though. As I went around the turnaround point to start heading back to the finish I passed by the 40 minute pacer group and Kim called to me “You’ve got about 400 yards on the monkey” I thanked her whilst in my head thinking “I have no idea how much 400 yards is” haha.
I soon finished and can proudly say I beat the monkey! It’s good to have a nemesis right?! I finished with a time of 39:07 in position 451. The monkey finished in 39:46! Close!
After getting my barcode scanned I went and topped up my run to 4 miles. Now I have that base I want to try and keep topping up my parkrun.
Do you have a parkrun nemesis?
Do people run your parkrun/local races in fancy dress?