I took up running (again) in January. This time properly by joining the Didcot Runners club’s improvers group which has helped me enormously with pacing, increasing my endurance etc. The “reward” for finishing the course was participating in the Abingdon Parkrun, my first timed 5k race. I had run 5k on my own and with the club a few times and got close to beating 30 minutes so that was my target for Saturday.
I set off aiming to run the first three km at around 6min/km pace and then I would up that to around 5m20s/km for the final two km. In the end that is pretty much exactly what I did, thanks to having a Garmin Forerunner which meant I could keep an eye on my time and pace!
I finished 85th from 146 starters (I was the 57th male to finish) in a time of 28m50s which was very pleasing. I deliberately didn’t push myself too hard and was keeping it comfortable throughout so I know there’s a bit more to be had still. I have to say how excellent the Parkrun system is, very friendly and very well organised, I’ll be there again for sure!
My first 10k race is in May, I’ve not actually run that far yet so I will be looking to up the distances I go out for over the next month!