Race Report - Bryn Bach 6 mile / Lap the Lake fun run

I've always been a reasonable fan of old Parc Bryn Bach. My 5k PB is round it's very flat parkrun (although I do prefer Merthyr and Penallta as runs), it's free toast is legendary among... certain individuals I know and generally, it's a nice, big, green park.

It's quite nice!

So when a run comes up around it, I do occasionally like to participate, even if I'm pretty confident the flat parkrun will not be representative of the conditions!!

Got Andrew Cooper in the background! Hi Andrew!

So, 286 others joined me behind the café thing and we were off on a 6 mile (not 10k) jaunt. The hill isn't a devastating one, but going up it twice still takes it's toll (I think I lost 40 or so secs the 2nd time up). The rest of the course is reasonable, up and down a little but scenic, clean and well organised marshaled. Ideal!

So, how did I do? Targets were:

Baseline:0:52:00 (8:40 min/ml)

Achievable:0:50:00 (8:20 min/ml)

Would be nice, but maybe beyond me this time:
0:47:00 (7:50ish min/ml)

and I did:


1 minute (according to my watch, gun time was 46:12, no sign of a chip yet) under top target. Think I handled the hills quite well after a couple of weeks of minimal training. Pretty confident I'll at least make the trip to Llanelli now, even if I'm not exactly going to light up the field! Very happy!

Once that was all done, it was a coffee, a welsh cake and back out for the fun run. 2.6ish miles with the daughter at a far more casual pace of course.

Race Day preview - Bryn Bach 6 mile / Lap the lake Fun Run

I've been quiet, mainly as I've been busy but like the bad smell which flows from me, I haven't gone away!

More posts to come on the small subject of Merthyr parkrun (note the correct capitalisation), which launched this very day (assuming I finish this post in the next 15 minutes) with a pleasing degree of success.

But back to me putting one foot infront of the other. Tomorrow I visit Tredegar to take part in the Bryn Bach 6 mile race, also running the fun run with the oldest. I've let the training slip big style, so I'm not expecting much tomorrow, but it'll be nice to get a few miles in.

Bryn Bach Park is pretty flat, but I'm not overly familiar beyond the parkrun course, so we'll see.

So... targets:

Baseline:0:52:00 (8:40 min/ml)

Achievable:0:50:00 (8:20 min/ml)

Would be nice, but maybe beyond me this time:
0:47:00 (7:50ish min/ml) 

This is also my first race out of club kit... Oooooh choices.

I'm not bothered about time, so the targets are loose, but it's good to have a plan after all. Be nice to get a few miles in and see if I all apart, the motivation is there but bus busy of late.

Llanelli marathon, is down as a maybe, I've not trained anywhere near enough, so may go for a trot round and get the tshirt etc anyway. Paid now after all!