I’d taken it easy over the weekend as my left achilles was feeling a bit tight. Rather than compete at Saturday morning’s Heaton Parkrun I’d answered their call for volunteers instead. I had volunteered once before and was then given a marshalling role, this time I was in the thick of it scanning ID and finishing position barcodes. For those of you who don’t know of it, Parkrun is a fabulous national, and more recently international, weekly free to enter 5k running race. Supported by sponsoring companies such as Sweatshop in the Arndale and relying on volunteers to make them happen, the Heaton Park meet is one of the bigger ones attracting up to 350 people of varying ability. I had run the previous week and due to an absence of club runners finished 4th place with a time 40 seconds off my best for the course. Had I set a PB I could have won, though I was in no shape to do that. There would have been no chance of a first place this week anyway as I spied Postman Paul who I knew was a sub 17 minute 5k runner. We had run together on a few Monday evenings with the Run England group when he was tempting me to join Salford Harriers with tales of sausage rolls and pints after their Thursday evening runs. Paul told me that he wasn’t feeling 100% just before he set off but finished a clear first place with a time just 20 seconds off his course best.
I had Sunday off and then ran with Tom on Monday evening. My left leg was still niggling me but I wondered if it was in my head? We agreed then to go out and run harder on Wednesday and so this lunchtime we headed off to Ordsall Park for a quick 400m (ish) circuit. My left achilles was fine but now my calf niggled (it had cramped a couple of days earlier). As we trotted gently to the park it played on my mind and I felt myself start to affect a limp. This was ridiculous and I decided to do an extra lap before the quick one to convince myself it was in my head; sure enough once my heart rate increased I forgot about the calf.
I lined up with Tom for the quick lap with butterflies in my stomache. He went off quickly as he did the last time we raced and I tracked him around the first bend through the first 100 metres. Along the back straight his pace dropped and I cruised past. I held my shape around the more treacherous second bend which was smattered with damp leaves and other tree debris then pushed hard without becoming too ragged along the finishing straight. My time was 60.7 seconds which was quicker than my previous best but obviously still outside the magical minute target. I didn’t feel I could have given much more, I’d set off faster than last week thanks to Tom and I didn’t feel my pace had dropped too much.
As the pair of us were stood there doubled over and gasping for breath a guy walking through the park asked what we were up to. I showed him the slightly disappointing time on my stopwatch and he concurred that the lap was about 400m. He asked us if we had heard of his cousin Renny Quow? Sadly neither of knew of the Trinadadian 400m runner, but after a bit of afternoon Googling it transpires that he can cover a similar distance in just over 45 seconds. I do wonder though if he could get anywhere close to that time when contending with loose dogs, gobby kids and youths on mopeds?
