It was the day of the parkrun 5k. My race marshalling duties had been cancelled due to the snowy conditions in the mountains, so I had no excuse. I chose the Mallards Pike parkrun and I can't believe I felt so nervous. I was definitely feeling the pressure. I was feeling a ton psychosomatic niggles. My left calf felt tight. The soles of my feet felt achy. On the warmup jog over to the start I felt I was getting a stitch. It felt like it was all going Pete Tong. I knew it was all in my mind but that didn't stop me feeling the symptoms.
As the start approached, I tried to calm my nerves. I shook out my ever-tightening muscles to loosen up and tried to think happy thoughts. I had an ambitious time of 23:30 in mind. That didn't help to reduce the pressure. 4:42 pace. All I could do was believe in the training...
Without further ado, we were off. I'd forgotten how much of an incline the first half is. It's not fell running steep, but it is definitely 'adjust the pace' steep. I didn't and my 4:43 first kilometre was too fast. On the upside all the psychosomatic niggles had evaporated so I was glad of that, at least.
My second and third kilometre splits were not good, 5:06 and 5:01. I was beginning to panic. They were uphill but that didn't stop my demons. I had a lot of time to make up and despite knowing it was all downhill, I was on the ropes and taking a pounding.
I battled on. I wasn't losing without a fight and thankfully kilometre number four took me somewhere towards redemption in 4:19. I was blowing. Heart rate was 170. A few runners came tearing past, but I hung in there for a final 4:18 and crossed the line in 23:19 so it all worked out all right in the end but by 'eck I thought I'd blown it there for a while.
Onwards and upwards from here....
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