No Kidding! – Poole 5k Park Run - Sat 23 Apr 11

A bit dazed, I waited outside Chalk and Cheese. Lin and Martin whizzed through the village in their new race-mobile, early doors to ensure our arrival in Poole before the 9 am start. I think Martin was a bit dazed too, when he needed reminding that the boot was wide open when driving off.

It was a warm day, a classic sunny Saturday, with that relaxed excitement that is the weekend has arrived. On arrival, other runners were appearing onto the park in a deceptively lazy fashion, and 70 or so assembled towards the pavilion and start line.

It was a fast start, and Martin and Lin pulled away steadily. There were markers at every 2k, which made peacemaking an easy job. Passing the 2k marker after 4minutes, I wondered if I could get to 4k on 8mins... this continued, as the body was coaxed around the lake, swans and prams, following the other runners and then I started to kid myself that a sub 20 was on the cards. The repeated positive mantra of ‘I’m feeling strong and I’m in contention’ did the trick, as I managed to kick to the line to record 19.59, a close run thing and another PB! Martin was in, on 18mins dead, and Lin just after 19mins as the first lady.

These Park Runs are great. They’re in most cities, and are free, and are a fantastic way to feel great for the rest of the day. So Lin, Martin and I rewarded ourselves with a cooked breakfast at Boscombe, to at least address the healthy balance!

Lin added:

I'm sure Richard won't mind me adding a few words to his report - I really just wanted to reiterate that Park runs are a really great concept. Absolutely the best thing about them is that they take place every Saturday throughout the year (some enthusiasts even turned out on Christmas and New Year's Day in 2010) - so instead of having to fit in with when a race is on you can chose to do it any weekend which suits you. Martin and I plan to do some more of these during the summer - probably pretty much as often as we don't have a race on the Sunday and are happy to car share if anyone else wants to participate. All you have to do is register on line up until Friday night ( http://www.parkrun.org.uk/poole/) print off your bar code and present it at the finish. Not only are the races great but the results and stats that they provide are also excellent and are usually on line the same day. And it's a really fun way to kick off the weekend.