Park Run number 15

Saturday morning saw me attend my 15th Park Run at Lanhydrock and I can honestly say that they don't get any easier!

On Friday night straight from work I went for a surf and spent the evening paddling around in the ocean watching glimpses of the sun setting between the grey clouds. It was a lovely evening as the weather wasn't great and this had meant that the beach was quiet and as the waves were considerably smaller than the previous few days of EPIC conditions it was ideal for a learner surfer like myself.

Once I had used up every ounce of energy it was time to leave the beach, get showered, fed and watered and off to bed ready for Park Run the following morning.

The weather forecast for this Saturday was pretty grim to say the least and although the morning was supposed to stay dry for Park Run the afternoon was sounding pretty horrific with lots of heavy rain forecast as well as thunder and lightening thrown into the mix.

When I arrived at Park Run I said hello to the familiar faces that I am beginning to see each week and with the sun just about shining through the clouds it felt a lot warmer than the previous weeks standing on the start line shivering. I decided that this was the week that I would leave my long sleeve top behind and run in just the T-shirt and hope that it doesn't rain and I was so pleasantly surprised that I wasn't cold at all and set off down hill alongside all the other runners.

I didn't feel particularly strong this week, I felt like I was already struggling and the start of the course is the easy section of down hill and flat patches but already I was getting out of breath and suffering a stitch. I continued pushing along but by the time I had reached the second of the giant hills on the Lanhydrock course I was walking. With some words of encouragement from the volunteers I had picked up the pace again and was back into a jog rather than a walk but yet again as the path got steeper I was struggling for breath and back down to a walking pace.

On the last of the 5km route at Lanhydrock the course goes downhill so with every ounce of strength I stopped the walk and started jogging to the finish really feeling the burn on this one today. Once I had had my bar code scanned in and got my breath back I headed back to the car, stretched and headed home. The sun was starting to disappear and the clouds and the rain were coming over and I felt proud that I had made it out of bed and enjoying the only good part of the day.

A few hours later my time for the course came through and I was pleasantly surprised that I had still managed to achieve a sub 30 minute 5km..... just! With a time of 29:18 it wasn't as bad as I thought even though I had walked rather more of the course than usual.