Well that was a disaster! Quite a large turnout at Fælledparken, which had the most impressive start up area I’ve seen thanks to the fan area setup for the football final later today at the stadium just over the road.
Nobody was going particularly fast at the start and I found myself in 2nd running 3:45/km. This is a very flat course, so potentially very quick, only thing going against it is the ground is like a very fine gravel. There were white chalk arrows on the route. I’d seen them being drawn as we arrived and the RD thanked the course marker, along with ever my other volunteer, individually during the briefing. The leader took a very sharp right and I followed, I was concerned but could see an arrow, we then proceeded to follow a number of tight turns (all with arrows) which started to raise alarm bells as I’d done the course before 5 years ago and didn’t recall it being that difficult to follow. When I could see a load of slower runners on the other side of the lake and turned round to see no one behind me I realised we’d make a mistake. There must have been marking from another event.
My first lap was 2.2km rather than 1.6km, I treated that as a warmup and then completed another 3 correct laps so I had done the entire proper course.
Sat in the cafe for post parkrun coffee while those of you in the UK are mid run. An uneventful one at Amager Strandpark today. Studied the course in detail but I was nowhere near the lead today, I think 8th in about 19:32. Was hoping for a little better on the very flat tarmac course but it’s probably a fair reflection of current fitness.
Back on the tourist trail today at Ipswich, nice little 2 lapper round a park, mostly trail and grass and must have been a bit boggy over winter.
Ended up going a bit faster than I’d planned and a sprint finish got me 20:59 and 12th overall.
Also bagged the letter I although I suspect Kim Jong Sinton-Hewitt and his HQ directorate are trying to get rid of town names so half expect it to change to Chantry Park one day.
That only leaves me needing the letter U to finish the alphabet
Tourism in general and all the little challenges can’t align with their core aim of trying to get inactive people down to their local park on a Saturday morning. I just think if they continue to alienate the core running community they will lose a substantial part of their volunteer base.
There is a relatively new event down the road from us, named itself after the cycleway that makes most of the route rather than the town it is in. As a result the name starts with a Q and gets quite a lot of tourists, don’t know if that was deliberate.
As I understand it the guidance now is to name the events after the closest named area / most detailed location, and avoid names of towns/cities. So it sounds like they have followed the policy.
Obviously when it first stated (excluding London) they probably only envisioned one event per town, but that very soon wasn’t sufficient.
Looks the parkrun tourism with the bonus day in the Netherlands at the end of May (Monday 20th May) with a new event starting with a Z is causing some issues. While that event isn’t doing the bonus event many people planning to attend it in on the Saturday.
The local council gave them a permit for 150 people. This Saturday gone they had 10 finishers at their 18th event. They are expecting anywhere from 150 to 500 on Saturday 18th.
Unfortunately my local parkrun had the dreaded runner collapse, CPR and defib requirement this morning. Thankfully the lady is said to be breathing on her own again, obviously in ICU but I think a little bit of a shock for all involved. Thankfully nurses and doctors around to do all the right things at the right time.
After the incident at my local parkrun a couple of months ago, a nurse from our running club has been going to local events to offer basic training in CPR.
Sub20 for the first time this morning in well over 2 years. Slowed massively after 3k, but that’s improvement from the 2k mark the last couple of times!
Had a slight dilemma today as I’d ended up with a tourist streak of 4 due to the cancellation of our local event on 4th May and then doing 2 events Copenhagen, so just needed to do one more event which wasn’t my local one to earn the “badge” in the 5K app. Then got reminded midweek that my club had chosen the local parkrun this week as part of their champs series.
Given I’m not in top form I opted with the tourism, to my next closest event, so had a 6.5km jog there. As always delayed setting off so had to run it a bit quicker than I’d like, having had no food or drink. Bit of a hot sweaty mess by the time I got there.
It was the first event back on the A route, which is mostly grass, for many months. My road shoes were squeaking all the way. Felt really sluggish at the start, but managed a 4:16 km and then very slightly increased pace every km.
Knew I had to jog back so didn’t go all out, but didn’t leave much in the tank for a 20:41. Jog home was very leisurely and not much fun. It’s been a while since I’ve done 18km (quick check on Stava; I did 16km early December).
Local parkrun for me today with the intention of putting some effort in but the legs were sluggish!
Some guy pushing a buggy went past with about 100m to go and I was just behind him and he then stopped dead the minute he hit the line and I nearly went into the back of him!
I stopped my watch at 20:00! But the timekeeper might have been different because of that I’ll take it though. Unlike poet it didn’t even get me in the top 20!
But I went past someone I know on the way there who did it but commuted on one of these but with a tiny rear disc wheel
and a sprint finish got me 20:59 and 12th overall.
