Park Running

Despite me being a regular Parkrun participant, this is not about Parkrun.  This brief(ish) blog is about something which I do far more infrequently, in fact only the 2nd time since I left school.  But something I will be doing more often.  I am talking about Cross Country running.

Sunday was the 2nd event of the Kent Fitness League series http://kfl.canterburyharriers.org/ 

Whilst Petts Wood Runners are not formally part of the league, we can run as guests as long as we provide our name in advance.

The Petts Wood Runners men's captain Chris 'Typhoon' Turner had suggested and arranged this and his efforts were rewarded with 30 runners attending from PWR.

I arrived just gone 10am on an absolute glorious autumn morning with my support crew, my wife Mich and my little boy Max and we soon saw the PWR flag and made a beeline for this.  We then, along with quite a few other bystanders watched 4 or 5 PWR's trying to erect our club gazebo.  I would have helped, but too many cooks and all that.

Luckily, John (the club secretary) arrived to save the day and promptly explained that it was inside-out and within a couple of minutes we had base camp.  Once everybody had gathered we had a bit of a chinwag and then had a quick team photo before making our way en-mass to the start.

PWRs (with gazebo the right way in the background)

We congregated at what most of us thought was the back and then realised we were at the front!  Not a problem for maybe 4 or 5 of the group, but for most of us mere mortals a little worrying that we would be caught in the stampede.

The race was due to start at 11am, but there was a welcome delay as we paid our respects to our fallen countrymen and women with an impeccably observed 2 minute silence.

Then the klaxon sounded and we were off and it was a stampede.  I tactically filtered my way to the middle of pack (can also be read as was overtaken by half the field) and tried to get into a rhythm, but this was a little difficult due to the muddy conditions and the twisting turning nature of the course.  I was quite surprise when my Garmin beeped for the first mile, that I looked at my watch and I had run a 7:46 mile!

I pretty much tried to maintain the pace and slowly began to pick a few people off.  The course was 3 laps and just shy of 5 miles.  Near the finish, I kicked on and manage to overtake 3 or 4 people and then out the corner of my eye saw this chap about to fly past, this resulted in an all out full on sprint for the last 100 metres.  He beat me by a whisker :-(  However, after checking the results, I would like to point out that he was 6 years my junior, plus I didn't want to push it too hard with a Marathon coming up 7 days later.  Well that is my excuse anyway :-)

Almost out of the frame due to electric pace (Yeah right!)

Just after the finish line we shook hands briefly and then both returned to being bent over with hands on our knees gasping for breath. My official time was 38:58 (his 38:57)

http://kfl.canterburyharriers.org/xc_result.php?id=4138

but I didn't manage to stop my watch until 39:08 as I didn't have the energy to press the button.

http://connect.garmin.com/activity/242380967

The PWRs were then rewarded afterwards with some Banana cake made by Sian and her little boy Sam (Sian, if you are reading this we now expect this every Tuesday night!)

Some of you reading this may think that it is a bit daft running this one week before a marathon.  However, as I had an enforced 10 day break recently I thought this would be a good final workout.  I will find out if it was a good idea on Sunday.

Until the next time

TJH