As it was my weekend off volunteering, I thought it'd be the best use of the time to go to exactly the same place only with my running head on! Now, let's be honest here, my running head is a pretty poor place, but generally speaking it work s enough to get me round.
My confidence and concentration in the middle of a race, as I may have mentioned before, is one of my biggest failings. It'll come, eventually.
Anyway, let's start at that very venue, Merthyr parkrun. My 5k PB is there (21:11 at my only real attempt at the course) so I thought I'd have a decent swing at it. I generally speaking followed my usual pattern, decent, comfortable (for 5k) first mile, second mile convinced myself I was going to blow up/pull up injured/catch fire and mentally fought myself for it, then the last bit... smell the finish line and go.
<I'll embed the strava here, doesn't appear to be working at the mo>
I got over the line, looked at my watch and swore loudly (sorry kids) at the 21:05 that was before me. 5 seconds off target... I'll get there. 5th place is reasonable, but still want a little faster.
So, the kids were running Sunday at the pre race bit of the Merthyr Muddy 5 Miler so after some umming and ahhing I decided to enter the adult race too. 5 miles, after looking at the course about 2.2 on concrete then rest on potentially boggy mud, the 2.2 means I went for road shoes of course or I'd have no knees left by the trail.
The route was nice, familiar and enjoyable, nice easy 2 miles (which I attacked knowing I'd lose 100 places on the mud). I felt I ran well enough, coming in 7th in 36:41. Good event this, only about 40 runners which is a shame, but equally the trail is narrow, so many more could cause congestion. Tough one to call.
<More Strava woes!>
Photo's nicked of the event page!
