Owls Count

I’ve run fairly well this year but there was a gap in my results – I had not set a 5k PB. I had raced the distance several times, but none had produced a PB. The two parkrun courses that I run (Reading and Basingstoke) are slower at this time of year, so I decided that I would run at the Boscombe 5k last Friday.

With a few days to go it was beginning to look as if this was a bad choice. There was a forecast of snow and high winds. Fortunately I was able to travel out of Reading easily on Friday lunchtime and there was no snow further west. On arriving at the seafront, the cliffs nicely sheltered us from the northerly winds. So it was chilly, but it seemed ideal for a good, fast run.

I warmed up well, but managed to leave my Garmin on autolap in miles and forgot to clear the warm up before starting the race. I started at a good pace and managed to keep the the pace up. I got in with a small group, just behind a much larger group and used these people to help me keep moving at around the right pace. I went through halfway in exactly ten minutes – perfectly to plan. On the way back I managed to keep moving well and managed a small sprint finish.

I was certain it was a PB, but I did not know if I had got under twenty minutes. I knew it was close, but I had to wait a few days for the results.
19:56

So that means I have PB-ed at all distances this year! Now thoughts turn to next year!

On Saturday I went and ran round a snowy track. 5:57 for the mile and some cake eaten.