Having frequented park run 7 times now and working towards being part of the 100 club and get my tshirt I have knocked some time off my park run pb and got it down to 28 minutes 1 second. Last weekend after waking up at 8.20am and not really being bothered to go I dragged my arse out of bed and rocked up with not much time to spare. Whilst sat on a bench in the sun (it was super hot) I looked down and "oh pooh! I had forgotten my watch" I hate running park run at the best of times as I never know where I am on the course as it confuses me and without my watch I would be even worse.
My friend Ben who runs park run in 20 minutes had been offering to pace me around for a while but I always refused due to it being trail and not wanting to damage my ankle again but today I knew I had to do something and asked Ben if he would pace me to around to my usual time 28-30 minutes. He was pacing his dad to 28 minutes so it was ideal to tag along with them and try to keep up as much as I could.
We set off and I was running along side Ben with his dad just behind the whole way through Ben was shouting at his dad to run faster he's falling behind pace etc, I was glad it wasn't me being screamed at. Under a mile in and his dad was struggling and told us to run on and pace me around instead so the screaming then started coming in my direction, I knew Ben was pushing me hard my breathing was very labored and I was making grunting noises (something I have never done before!) Coming up to the final run up Badgers Hill he was telling me it's all downhill after that and think of it as one more sprint like at efforts on a Thursday.... at that point in time that really wasn't the right thing to say. I wanted to stop but Ben said he wouldn't tell me what time I was on for.. which made me think I was getting close to overunning the 28 minute 1 second pb I currently held on that course. Ben left me on the final straight across a dreaded field so he could stop his watch as I crossed the finish. I felt like my lungs were going to burst, I was feeling light headed but coming into the finish tunnel Ben held his watch out to show me my time.
25 minutes 45 second..... 25 minutes 45 seconds...... 25 minutes 45 seconds. I can't repeat all of the words that came out of my mouth but it went something like " Are you ******* kidding me?" I could not believe that I had knocked just under 3 minutes of my time, I never thought my 5k time would begin with a 25 considering when I first started running I was pushing at 31 minutes.
Now I just needed to run this fast without someone pacing or shouting at me the whole way around but my hat goes off to Ben he does this selfless act of helping people get pb's often and always knocking 3 - 4 minutes off times. It has been mentioned if I pay his entry to a 10k race he will pace me to a 10k pb so watch this space.
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