Despite running six days a week for over two years, completing countless races and most distances, I've never – before this weekend – actually done a parkrun. Well, quite a few junior ones, but I'm not the one with the barcode for that, so I don't think it counts.
So on Saturday, on a lovely sunny morning on the south coast, I lined up for my first with a pretty large field for Poole parkrun. It's a flat – albeit rather windy, with the precursor of Sunday's storms already brewing – course around the lake, finishing on the cricket pitch. I don't know how many parkruns have pacers (Poole doesn't always, but did this weekend) but I'm fairly sure it's unique in having a pacer who just ran in the Commonwealth Games marathon. Steve Way was the 18-minute pacer, so once the run was underway that was the last I saw of him until the finish.
With a field also including an ex-Olympian (Liz Yelling) and a very flat course, it must have a claim to being one of the fastest in the country. I finished in 19 minutes 14 seconds, which was a 5km PB, making two PBs in a week. I might have to take a few weeks off racing now, before I push my luck too much ...
