A return to Beacon Park for the last Parkrun opportunity of the year and jetting off for a week of skiing. With the Christmas Day Parkrun at Concord and a Boxing Day Two Turtle Doves fell race in my legs I wasn\u2019t holding much hope in finishing this year with a sub-20. I had to at least try.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I nestled behind about 30 runners on the narrow path and in true parkrun tradition set off a bit quick. This helped give me some space from the mass of bodies and I fell into a good rhythm. Lap one went smoothly and felt much shorter than 2.5km, but I think the psychology behind a two-lapper course is much more palatable than a three-lapper like Hillsborough.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
On the second lap I spent most of it on the heels of a man, using him as pacemaker and Snowpiercer to cut through the thick mist. I thanked each marshal, as always, and the tail walkers too as we sped past. The course is forgiving, a total of 20m elevation over 5k which is barely noticeable on a mix of hard paths, good quality trails, and a sprint finish over grass.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Rolling into the final kilometre I stuck to my unofficial pacer, being mean and not offering any assistance leading. In my defence I was huffing and puffing like Nessa with a vape (and cigarette). As the finish got closer I glanced at my watch and realised the GPS wasn\u2019t registering correctly, showing I had done a shorter distance than in reality. Sub-20 was still on the cards. I pushed, speeding up and with it my breath becoming louder. Mr pacer heard and retaliated with his own surge. We were on the grass, him one stride ahead, but failing, and I pass!<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I thanked him after for a good fight at the end, a proper thrill of the race moment (even though the winner had finished about three and a half minutes before us). I secured a 19:55 (as did he, albeit just behind me) to finish the year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Stats<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Moving time: 19:55<\/p>\n\n\n\n Distance: 5km<\/p>\n\n\n\n Elevation: 21m<\/p>\n\n\n\n Average Pace: 3:59\/km<\/p>\n\n\n\n Average HR: 171bpm<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" A return to Beacon Park for the last Parkrun opportunity of the year and jetting off for a week of skiing. With the Christmas Day Parkrun at Concord and a Boxing Day Two Turtle Doves fell race in my legs I wasn\u2019t holding much hope in finishing this year with a sub-20. I had to […]<\/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":[27,29,33,9,6],"class_list":["post-279","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-short-race","tag-5km","tag-parkrun","tag-race","tag-road","tag-run"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/chasingthearbitrary.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/279","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=279"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/chasingthearbitrary.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/279\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":280,"href":"https:\/\/chasingthearbitrary.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/279\/revisions\/280"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/chasingthearbitrary.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=279"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chasingthearbitrary.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=279"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chasingthearbitrary.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=279"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}