I am in Lichfield this weekend with Fiona, staying at her parents. She has an outdoor swim booked for Saturday morning, so I think, let\u2019s go do the parkrun. I am told I can park in the back corner of the Morrisons carpark, and dubiously arrive to see the entire area is people clad in running gear. A brief warm up, if you could really call it that, around the field adjacent to the start is in order before I attend my first \u2018first timers\u2019 briefing. I then position myself as close to the start line as possible.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I am already weary of this course. Not only because it is my first time in the park, but the paths seem dangerously narrow, especially for 200+ runners and unsuspecting members of the public. I had recced the course beforehand and it seemed simple enough. Two laps of the park\u2019s boundary with a final mad dash across a field to the finish. The run director counted us down, and we\u2019re off.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A mad dash in slow motion. The field of runners was so dense that I waddled for a good 10 seconds before being able to get running. I feel like a laggy game of Call of Duty, speeding up and slowing down as the pack moves and agitates, confined by the narrow paths and trees that prevent effective overtaking. Thankfully the path briefly widens around the pond, and I was able to start building places. Lock onto the person in front, slowly close the gap, repeat.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The route does a couple of 90 degree turns before looping around the rose gardens, a large square where you almost run back on yourself. Glancing over to the far side I could see a man running. A ridiculously long stride, even more ridiculous cadence. He would go on to finish in 16:46. The after the rose gardens the paths narrow again to no more than 1.5m across, barely enough room to pass or be passed, let alone give park users enough space to feel comfortable as you barrel on by. Two young lads were running, trading positions on each corner before one began to slow. I ran beside him down through the woodland before slipping by. A narrow bridge awaits you at the end of the woods before a steady climb beside the golf course. Here I fell in behind a MARAFUN runner, using him to pace myself up the climb. As he slowed, I took that as my notice to push on. One lap down.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I like the parkrun for several reasons. It gives me something productive to do on a Saturday morning, it\u2019s free, it\u2019s a fun community to be involved in, and it allows me to push myself without the pressure of it being something super serious.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
For the last lap I was in a pack of three of four. We ran together, occasionally switching positions right up until the last straight, where I could hear the impending footsteps of a final kick I couldn\u2019t match. A bearded fellow sped by, and all I could do was make up the place I lost by overtaking a woman who didn\u2019t look like she could be bothered with the final sprint.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I am in Lichfield this weekend with Fiona, staying at her parents. She has an outdoor swim booked for Saturday morning, so I think, let\u2019s go do the parkrun. I am told I can park in the back corner of the Morrisons carpark, and dubiously arrive to see the entire area is people clad in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[24],"tags":[27,28,29,9,10],"class_list":["post-132","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-short-race","tag-5km","tag-beacon-park","tag-parkrun","tag-road","tag-trail"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/chasingthearbitrary.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/132","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/chasingthearbitrary.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/chasingthearbitrary.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chasingthearbitrary.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chasingthearbitrary.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=132"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/chasingthearbitrary.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/132\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":133,"href":"https:\/\/chasingthearbitrary.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/132\/revisions\/133"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/chasingthearbitrary.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=132"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chasingthearbitrary.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=132"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chasingthearbitrary.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=132"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}