Tring virtual parkrun #54 challenge
So our (not)parkrun photo challenge theme this week is “Theatre, Plays and Musicals” in recognition of it being World Theatre Day today (27th March).
Thought we’d add a touch of class to this one…(although must confess that we haven’t seen any of the plays wot he wrote)
Keeping on track
(to run 16km in a single run by the time parkrun re-starts in England)
Two weeks’ ago, I kicked off my personal mini-challenge by recording an 11km run on a flat course near me. ( This challenge marks a return to running longer that 10km distances: not something that I have managed to do, for one reason or another, since Lockdown 1 started last year).
This week, I set my mind to extending that range by a modest amount: perhaps to 11.5km or 12km. I had arranged an out-and-back route which brought me back to the start after 11km, with an option to run on, beyond the starting point in the opposite direction for 500m, or so, to then double-back to where I had originally set off. However, the mind was playing that “I’ll just get to that signpost…and then I’ll turn around” trick. When said signpost was reached, the inner voice said “go on…you can do this…just get as far as the next way mark!” and, before I knew it, I’d clocked up 12.3km at the point where the trail crosses a busy road so, I turned around at that point and headed back towards the original set-off point before my legs had a chance to tell my brain that it was time to stop for the day. The finishing point was duly reached after a further 1.3km, and at a much slower pace than which I had started out.
Result: 13.6km in 1:32:07 (overall pace 6:46 min/km.) Just going to do 10km next week (recovery plan).
In other news this week
Last week when I mentioned the launch of a new parkrun book “How parkrun changed our lives”, by Eileen Jones, I failed to also mention the associated 330 mile relay run from the author’s home parkrun at Fell Foot (beside Lake Windermere) to Bushy Park; the progress of which I have been following with interest. Thursday saw the final day, the first and second legs of which involved five “Tringers”.
Cast nay a clout…till May is out
Spring is well under way, and I have the sense that we are beginning to emerge from more than than just the usual winter hibernation. In fact it feels more like 12 months of hibernation, with the various restrictions which we have necessarily had to comply with. Looking at the “daily stats” this week, it seems that the decline in the number of new Coronavirus infections is beginning to slow in this country, and there are warnings of a third wave to “hit these shores” from continental Europe. It reminds me that, as we look forward to the coming Summer, our optimism needs to be seasoned with a certain amount of caution and perhaps also the realisation that some things are unlikely to be quite the same as they were before the pandemic, at least not for the foreseeable.
That said, there is much to look forward to and plan for on the running front. parkrun will be back in June and, all being well, Round Sheffield Run and Oxford Half-marathon to take part in (the incentive for my mini-challenge to extend my running range) and a London Marathon to spectate at. Onwards and upwards (literally in the case of RSR).
Keep Safe—Keep Running…and don’t forget to put your clocks forward tonight. “The times they are a changing…yeah”
Running Commentary 
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