Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing

An unofficial parkrun this morning, due to problems accessing the kit storage cupboard in the climbing centre. With a full set of marshals on the course and only one minor tweak to the route — no key to the gate to Duckes Meadow — the run took place pretty much as normal, the only difference being the lack of an official time.

Arriving a little later than normal — I was a bit disorganised this morning — I met up with A and, to my surprise, J — who'd been down to run last week, but who'd had, at the last minute, to take Tiny Flo the vets. J was slightly disappointed that she wasn't going to get an official time — she said that she thought it might be her first and last run, so she wanted it to count! — but I suggested that it was actually a pretty good start, allowing her to do run and get used to the crowd without the pressure of having to perform.

Lacking any particular reason to hurry, I pottered around the course at a very easy pace. Around the first kilometre mark, John Caswell, a stalwart of the local running scene tapped my elbow and suggested we both go for a personal worst! We then sauntered round the course, chattering away — neither of us was so out of breath that we couldn't hold a normal conversation. Towards the very end, we started close the gap with the pair of runners in front; then, as we hit 500 metres to go, John slid between them and moved on up the course. I put on a very resigned tone of voice and said to the couple in front, "Oh no! Now he's done that, I suppose I'm going have to do it too..." They both chuckled and I slipped by to finish in 22 minutes flat.

I left my watch running once I'd reached the usual finishing line and timed the others in. A finished in around 25:10 or so — easily another PB — and J finished around the 29:20 mark — solidly respectable for a first go and almost exactly in line with her expectations.

Although I'm not sure I'd want to do it every week — I need the tyranny of the stopwatch to prevent me from slacking — I thoroughly enjoyed today's run. I think it's real credit to the marshals and the run director that they went ahead, despite the problems, and it's nice that all the runs went ahead and ran anyway, despite the lack of times; I suppose it just goes to underline the spirit of parkrun as a community rather than just a timed run.

Hot and humid this morning with a big bank holiday field, but still managed an OK time and decent enough place. Rather to my amusement, this week's top 30 finishers showed a strange cluster of names: six people called either Sam or Samuel.

With D busy with wedding errands — a couple of other regulars were running in veils and bride-to-be sashes — it was just me and A this week — with A picking up another PB. Next week we're hoping for a bigger group: the plan is for P&D's wedding party to turn up for parkrun; I know some people have been practicing their distance running, ready for the day-after-the-big-day.

Reasonbly quick one this week, finishing 20th in a time of 20:08. There was a good turnout of 323 runners and A managed her first parkrun since having surgery a few months ago, finishing in a very creditable 28 minutes. Afterwards, I went and got myself well and truly chewed by Dasher — she made a determined effort to eat my ears! — and then it was home and out again for an afternoon climb.

A change to the course this week, following last week's kerfuffle, to take us down through the flood channel and back up before joining the main path, avoiding the worst of the narrowed section in the process. Having started a long way back, I put in a very slow first kilometre, a modest second one, and three very fast ones to finish, pulling back enough time to finish in 20:46. Not bad given that I stood around for a good 15 seconds after the whistle went, waiting for people to start moving. Rather than waiting around at the finish, I ran to the climbing centre, got myself scanned, ran back to the finish and then headed off along the footpath on the eastern side of the canal, and round to bridge over the river. On the other side, I met up with D, who was marshalling, around the same time as the tail runner was coming through. I helped to pick up the signs and we walked back to the start — the other volunteers thought it was pretty funny that I'd finished the 5K and then run the course again — where I got the inside story on the course alteration.

With the others away this week — either on-call or at Glastonbury — and with E taking it easy after picking up a minor shoulder tweak, it was down to me to run solo. Happy, I bumped into FG at the briefing and we got talking about times and conditions and I said I was sure he'd make his target time of 20 minutes. As we made it to the start, I got talking to MB who was pacing 30 minutes, and didn't really worry too much about getting to the front.

Despite being cooler than last week, the humidity felt much higher and conditions weren't exactly ideal for a super-fast time, so I started gently and sped up towards the middle. As I hit the last klick, I started to catch up with F and we pulled each other along and I finished in 20:23 after confusing the total distance field on my watch with my current pace and suddenly cranking up the speed. Still finished 19th out of a field of 235 — much smaller than last week — and managed to get to the Quay quickly enough that I was only the second person to get my barcode scanned.

With D away on a pre-wedding event this morning, I hatched a plan to meet up with E and run at Killerton. And because dogs are allowed there, L decided to being Kira along for a spot of exercise. Once there, we discovered that JF was the week's run director — I subsequently discovered it was his first time and he said it was pretty stressful but got easier once everything was in motion — and lurked around at the start waiting for the off.

I didn't get going particularly cleanly: I forgot to start my watch and had to pause to unlock it before setting it off, so I decided to run the first kilometre or so with E. Once I started to feel warmed up, I began to crank the pace and started overtaking people. Unfortunately, the paths made it hard to pass people without being a total jerk about it, so I kept on varying my pace until we got to the lane at the mid-point, where I really accelerated.

I finished in a very slow 21:41 (my watch, which excluded the time I'd spent fussing about at the start, told me I'd finished in a bit over 21 minutes) but when I reviewed my lap times afterwards, I discovered that my pace over the back part of the course had been extremely fast indeed, which explains how I was able to claw quite so much time back and why I was still overtaking people right up to the finish.

Talking to L after the finish, I gathered that he'd had a tough time and his running partner hadn't been on her best behaviour. And as if to illustrate the point, she somehow managed to tear the attachment point off her harness and dash off towards another dog. L got her back under control very quickly — and the other dog-owner was very nice about it — but he decided he was too frazzled to stay.

E and I set ourselves up at one of the tables in the stable courtyard and settled down for tea. We were joined by a couple who were looking after a lovely little rescue terrier — they said she was some sort of staffie cross — for the weekend and had taken her round parkrun. They said they'd seen Kira — L said something about her growling at a terrier — but they too were very nice about the problems of having a rescue dog, especially when it's as large as a huskie.

Afterwards, we took a spin around the plant section of the NT shop to allow E to check out the dahlias — she was mainly interested in the various purple-shaded bishop cultivars, which she reckoned would suit her current planting scheme. With the weather still slightly overcast and uncertain, we called it a morning and headed home.

Up and out for a very humid run this morning — despite the forecast predicting a modest chance of rain this morning, we had nothing, with most of the moisture well and truly stuck in the atmosphere. Despite wearing my sleeveless top for the first time this year — I always have to aclimatise myself to the way my ponytail slaps me on the shoulders when the sleaves go — I was still so sweltering I had to take off my sunglasses partway through.

Once again, with the course more constricted and constrained than usual, I started slow and cranked up the pace to finish in an adequate 20:32. The course was slightly longer than normal — the marshals respsonsible for the field section had been extremely diligent and marked it out so that it went right into the very corners, erroring on the side of too long rather than too short; a decision I very much agree with!

Despite it being my 70th run, I can't feel too smug: there was someone there celebrating their 400th run! An amazing achievement. Looking at their recent runs, it looks like they're doing a grand tour, running at a different place every weekened, with Exeter happening to coincide with one of their big numbers. And rather charmingly, they'd brought along cake to celebrate!

A big field this morning — well over 400 — and rather haphazard start. I was so far back I didn't even hear the countdown. It took me a good few seconds to start my watch, and even then I noticed I spent a good 6-8 seconds waiting for the group to start moving.

Despite the slow start, I managed to pull things back and finished in 20:33 and completing the last kilometre at a 3:40 pace — I was very determined I wasn't going to finish in more than 21 minutes and because I wasn't precisely sure how much time I'd lost at the start, I wanted to be sure I was well under the cut-off.

A surprisingly quick run, finishing in 19:58 after I noticed my watch ticking down towards the magic twenty minute barrier as I was approaching the end and made the decision to blitz it.

A misty morning down by the river, with the sun just starting to break through as we reached the finish. Following my current tactic of starting slightly more gently and cranking up the pace towards the end — something that makes the run rather more enjoyable — I finished in 20:10 and 25th out of 294 runners. A solidly satisfactory result...