After the 5 miles on Friday morning in Berlin and the annoyingly delayed flight back to the UK, I headed off to my local parkrun in Kingston on Saturday morning with medium expectations. My current Garmin had inexplicably failed so i used the back up which I had set up differently so I struggled with my pacing, but actually got a good personal time of 25.35, only 10 seconds slower than this years course PB and way quicker than last week.
I went down to the boat in Teddington to sort out a number of DIY issues, and then in the evening went to see the Blues Brothers and Ten years After at Hampton Pool. As ever a great evening and the Hampton Pool summer programme is highly recommended. Check it out. One of the benefits of these gigs is that you can swim in the pool , so I got in a 10 length (300m?) swim before the music started. The Blues Band were great and in fine form despite there advanced years. Ten Years After felt more like 50 years after! The core of the band actually played at Woodstock 50 years ago. Which is cool, but it did not look as if they were enjoying themselves on Saturday. The front man (lead guitar/singer) was a much younger addition and in fairness very good but the set didn’t gel. My wife Stella is more into punk and hated it so we left early, but a good night overall.
Sunday and the Elmbridge 10k. It was warm but not as hot as the forecast had suggested. I set off at a good pace and quickly started to move up the field. At 5k I was going well bu beginning to tire, and although I kept going well the second half was slower than the first. My chip time was 52.25, which was quite respectable for me. I did run a very good personal time just under 52 minutes at the Stragglers 10k, about a month ago, but that was a club race and not officially measured, so possibly slightly flattering. My predicted time for Elmbridge was 52 minutes, which I thought was probably optimistic, so finished very close to target.
All of this bodes well for the start of marathon training proper. Be interesting to see how I fare as we move into the longer distances.
This Running Life 