I'm pleased to say I did my first parkrun yesterday, and it was really good. I've heard lots of good things about it through my club, and also they are very popular on Marathon Talk, so I thought I'd give one a go. My nearest one is the Killerton parkrun near Exeter.
For those who don't know, there are various parkruns that are run every Saturday in locations all of the UK (and the world, in fact). It's a free, timed event and it's really well organised. Basically, as a runner you register on the parkrun website and you get allocated a bar code. This bar code is personal to you and to get your results display on the parkrun website against your name, all you have to do make sure you take this bar code with you each time you run any parkrun. Many people print out and laminate their codes, so I did the same. At the end of the event, you also get given a timing token. This timing token, together with your barcode, is what the organisers use to display your results. After the first time registration you can just turn up to any parkrun that is being ran across the country on any weekend. Even if you don't have your barcode, you can still run but your name will not be present in the event results - against your position there will be a name of "unknown", with no time present.
Anyway, back to my parkrun. Killerton itself is a National Trust site so has all the facilities available with ample free parking, toilets and a cafe for after the run. The Killerton course itself is mixed terrain with some inclines, but it's a nice pleasant course. I got around in 23:01 (parkrun send a text an email with your results) which I was pleased with, especially as I had completed a 16-mile LSR the night before. It's something to aim for anyway, as I'm sure I can knock a few seconds off of that based on my 43:40 10K PB.
I will definitely be doing the event again. It's just a shame it's 25 miles from my house as it's a bit of a drive to get to for just a 5K. If there was one nearer I would definitely look to do them more regularly.
The other reason I snuck this session into the week's plan is because it meant that this week I have completed 5 training sessions, which (apart from the December running streak, which doesn't really count) is only the second time I've done that. I ran nearly 39 miles (38.91) this week which is the biggest weekly mileage since training for my marathon.
I mentioned the 16-mile LSR I did on the Friday. I did this after work, and it was very hot. I purposefully kept this at my LSR pace (10 - 10.5 min/mile) but intended to try and run a couple of miles towards the end at my half marathon target pace (8 min/mile) but I struggled, partly due to the heat. This isn't a good sign for Torbay Half in a couple of weeks, but I'll give it my best shot on the day.
I've also been using MFP for the whole week, and I've been honest with what I've consumed and exercised. I need to average 1800 calories per day to lose 1 pound a week. I've decided to take an average of the calories over the week (MFP provides facilities to track calories over a week), as this helps average out any days where more food is needed (i.e., on an LSR). I think for this week I am just about going to be under the target across the whole week, even taking into account that I went to a beer festival yesterday, which isn't the best way to keep a track of calories and eat healthily! Still, I enjoyed the festival and didn't eat or drink a huge amount and even with the beer festival I'm going to be close to the required calories over the course of a week. I'm going to keep MFP going and see how I get on over the next few weeks.
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